With technology moving and changing at the rapid pace that it has been for the past couple years, many questions have arisen as to whether traditional print media is still necessary or not. One question that is up for debate is whether there is a market for new reference books to be printed, or if they should only be available in an ebook format.

There are pros and cons for both printed books and ebooks, so to say that one is better than the other or to say that only one version should be used would not be a fair statement to make.

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Printed books offer many advantages such as being easily obtainable by a book store or public library. They do not cause significant eye strain and they are easily portable. The biggest pro to using a printed reference book is that you do not need power to use it. However, printed books can become more of a hindrance than a help when you need to carry many around, such as a student who has to have a number of textbooks with them. To read a printed book you also need a significant source of light which can prove to be difficult in certain situations.

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Ebooks are portable and it is possible to store many books on one device, eliminating the weight factor of printed books. They are environmentally friendly and notes made can easily be found by means of a search function. Lighting is not a contributing factor. There are however some drawbacks to ebooks. To view an ebook you need an ebook reader if the electronic version is not available online, which can be costly,. Eyestrain problems are similar to that of working on a computer for long hours and you need a power supply if you plan on working with your ebook for a few hours.

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Some well-known reference books have been turned into ebooks to give people the option of using the version that suits them best. There are even talks suggesting  that the full version of the next Oxford English Dictionary will be an online version only and a condensed version will be available in the printed format.

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The bottom line is that whichever format you choose you will be getting out what you need. The information remains the same regardless of the format. How we access that information is becoming less and less significant.

Sources: Hubpages.com; Ebscohost.com; Mashable.com

Image source: Jpsblog.org