After losing some personal journals to a flood I toyed around with using a camera to digitize / back them up. It was tedious and the results were inconsistent. Hopefully, this will allow me to keep my bound copies AND have a digital backup.

For those who question scanning their libraries, I am not sure if that is the goal of this device or even desirable. For me, being able to keep a stack of (electronic) books with me — sans the weight and space — while traveling on business easily makes up for losing the tactile feel of paper.

For those who think ereaders are like computers — that’s not the case if you have an ereader that uses e-ink. Very easy on the eyes, just like a book. And wonderful to have such a small and lightweight item with you that holds all of your books, including reference works!

Apart from that, it’s interesting to note that the vast majority of businesses still keep paper copies of their vital documents because hard copies are regarded as a safer form of archiving than digital, as (a) technology changes so quickly and (b) people don’t necessarily know how to access digitally-stored documents if they’re not familiar with the specific operating systems and software they’re stored on.

On the environmental side:
1. Without well-managed commercial tree plantations, the average global temperature would be approximately 5% higher than it is today and we wouldn’t have vast carbon sinks spread out all over the world.
2. Paper is a renewable, recyclable and BIODEGRADABLE resource. Digital technologies depend on hardware made almost exclusively from non-renewable resources, most of them derived from petrochemicals.
3. One Google search uses about as much energy as boiling a kettle, so digital technology isn’t always the better option.

Sometimes going digital can go to far and I would say this is it.