I am not sure that it is a world
after paper yet, but certainly a viable alternative. I still prefer to read the SRGC Bulletin on paper rather than the pdf version, although I am happy to read the earlier AGS mags on screen, then print off the relevant articles I want to take on holiday with me.
I often use a laptop with Adobe Acrobat Reader to view scanned pdf files of books. If you turn the image 90 degrees anticlockwise and change the view to one page only, you can hold your laptop like a book. It props up easily on your knee, and the PageUp and PageDown keys fall easily under the fingers. Not quite as neat as a new-fangled iPad, but cheaper ! I even prop it up on the pillow and read in bed to the considerable exasperation of my wife.....
As for books, you don't need to pirate them. As well as Google Books theer are several other Digital Libraries on the web which have free scanned original books. So far I have only used the old out-of-print books which are out of copyright, and you would have to travel a long way to find - then only in a reference library. I have also found several Botanic Gardens with original scanned herbariam sheets.
Out of interest Librivox at
http://librivox.org/newcatalog/ has a good free (Public Domain) catalogue of audio books which I download to a USB stick as mp3 files and listen to on an iPlayer or simply plug into the stick into my car audio system to listen on my way to and from work.
