Abstract: There are more important other aspects to e-books than the technological and socio-economic ones that are most frequently discussed as we watch how readers adopt or reject them. Like all technology, e-books (and e-book uptake and resistance to e-books) need to be studied as a sociotechnical phenomenon. That is to say, e-books do not just represent a technological invention, but also a process of social discovery. Likewise, the stakeholders are not just the manufacturers of the hardware and software, and various parties in the book trade, and authors, but they include also government and, perhaps most badly neglected, the users.