Paper makes ebooks real

One of my throwaway remarks at BarCamp Canberra 2010 got the attention of the Twitterarty:

vinhvanlam Show someone single copy of a "real book" & they'll read and trust the online version says Tom Worthington #bcc2010 moodle to mobi to kindle

AndrewBlanda "When you have a real book (just 1 copy), people then begin reading the online version" Tom Worthington #bcc2010

This is something I noticed when helping set up the conference publishing system for the ACS. Holding up a bound copy of conference proceedings impressed many professors more than did a view of the online papers. But having seen one "real" (paper) copy, they were then happy to use the electronic version.