Penn State Sony Reader Pilot Project

[yekim54]

This fall, Penn State University Libraries and the English Department begin a year-long pilot project with student groups using the Sony Reader Digital Book, a portable electronic reading device that can hold books, audio files, and other downloaded materials. Sony donated 100 of the devices to the Libraries for the project that will test the utility of e-books in a higher education environment. The study will explore the potential of the Sony Readers in a variety of settings, including the Libraries’ leisure reading program, undergraduate and graduate classrooms, academic research projects, and as a service for people with disabilities.

Read the rest of the story here:

http://alumni.libraries.psu.edu/libtodaySony.html

[nekokami]

Interesting. The Sony Reader doesn't seem like the best tool for academic reading, but then again, I don't see iRex donating 100 units to Penn State. I wonder if they'd be interested in my paper on reading and annotating electronic texts?

[jerryleejr]

I have noticed Sony picking up in the Marketing dept. They are doing a Reader Revolution across the U.S. in select cities.

JJ

[Cthulhu]

Yekim--

Thanks for the post!

That looks pretty cool. The Reader would be a pretty ideal device for English Majors, considering that, with the exception of all those goofy "new age" courses, most of the texts are available for free somewhere.
Nice to see that the University is taking a somewhat scientific approach to studying the user experience of the device.

Glad to know that someone was paying attention to the tobacco companies' genius marketing plan--hook 'em early!

[daffy4u]

Taking a page from the Apple book. Smart marketing.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by jerryleejr

I have noticed Sony picking up in the Marketing dept. They are doing a Reader Revolution across the U.S. in select cities.

What is a "Reader Revolution"?

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by igorsk

What is a "Reader Revolution"?

It looks like a touring demo program.

[TheJohnNewton]

Nothing much to add at this point just wanted to say thanks for posting this.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Interesting. The Sony Reader doesn't seem like the best tool for academic reading, but then again, I don't see iRex donating 100 units to Penn State. I wonder if they'd be interested in my paper on reading and annotating electronic texts?

(I'm an "academic reader" myself, with a library of 700+ books and counting)
While i absolutely *love* the fact that i can take pretty much every book I want with me, as well as carrying lots of secondary literature without feeling the extra weight, I have to say that it's not at the stage yet where it can replace paper books (unless you've got 2-3 :P)..

• Fairly sluggish opening times (and rendering speed of text-only PDFs) keep me from constantly switching between books.
• The impossibility to do text searches/quickly look up footnotes/flip around through the pages (when they're in the back of the book; it would be nice if those footnotes were links to the relevant footnote in the index, but i guess that will have to wait until it's implemented in the PDF standard).
• Very limited bookmark support (the alternate iPDF viewer works well enough, but it really needs to support "normal" PDF bookmarks.), and possibly a GUI window that shows the bookmarks/index

While most of the above things are fairly easily fixed with CPU speed upgrades, these things really need to be addressed in some way before it can be called a "mature" product for reading, i'd say..

[Cthulhu]

@ the Physics Geek:

I may be wrong, but I believe that the I-Rex Illiad performs a number of those tasks. The Kindle has the "whispernet" and dictionary look up. However, both devices are a bit more costly than the SONY Reader. I also believe that there was a post on the forum relating to iRex working with some schools or social groups to do a mass-market test somewhat similar to SONY's work with PENN.
SONY seems to be marketing their product aggressively, after offering the device like some back-alley huckster at first (psst...wanna buy an ebook, kid?). They seem to have embraced the notion that this product could make them money. It also appears to me that SONY is after the mostly fiction-reading crowd, non-academic crowd. At least until they started this program. ;-
I see that you own an Iliad. You can let me know if I'm right or wrong about searches. Though it seems that the efficacy of the looking-up bit would be more based in the actual document and what relevant links were written into it.
I graduated with an English degree and a minor in Russian, so I am most likely wrong about all the technological bits.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

@ the Physics Geek:

I may be wrong, but I believe that the I-Rex Illiad performs a number of those tasks. The Kindle has the "whispernet" and dictionary look up. However, both devices are a bit more costly than the SONY Reader. I also believe that there was a post on the forum relating to iRex working with some schools or social groups to do a mass-market test somewhat similar to SONY's work with PENN.

The criticisms I list here are the ones I have after using the thing for a while already now. :-)
(I'm actually majoring in philosophy,) so being able to read/switch between primary/secondary literature is pretty much a necessity, and not easily done (yet).

[Tom90deg]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

Taking a page from the Apple book. Smart marketing.

Very true. I think once you actually get people to USE a e-reader, Kindle, Sony or whatever, the change will be like when MP3 players came out. It'll go from, "I'll just burn a CD, what's the problem?" to "Ahh...this is better!" It's all about market penetration, which Apple, as much as I dislike them, is extremely good at.

[Dr. Drib]

In my opinion, once someone really cracks the academic market with ebook Readers (which would entail improved PDF support, as we all know), and a company (or series of companies) that can also negotiate a long-term growth plan involving the transference of paper to e-ink, then the ebook market will explode.

This, in my opinion, is in the process of happening. The infrastructure is being explored right now -- testing the waters with Sony's donation - and it's only going to be a matter of time before agreements and terms are met as the e-ink technology itself continues to advance.

It may take a few years, but I really do feel that's the next big step to seal the legitimacy of the ebook market.

Don

[Cthulhu]

@ Zero Spin-

I thought that there would be the equivalent of a hyper-text link in the document from the note to the actual citation. That is the case with most BBeB documents that I have on the Reader. Indeed, it is not lightning quick, but I can cycle from the main text to the footnote & back with the joystick.
Maybe the functionality that you seek is a bit more involved than I use while reading a Terry Pratchett book or a non-fiction item.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

• Fairly sluggish opening times (and rendering speed of text-only PDFs) keep me from constantly switching between books.
• The impossibility to do text searches/quickly look up footnotes/flip around through the pages (when they're in the back of the book; it would be nice if those footnotes were links to the relevant footnote in the index, but i guess that will have to wait until it's implemented in the PDF standard).
• Very limited bookmark support (the alternate iPDF viewer works well enough, but it really needs to support "normal" PDF bookmarks.), and possibly a GUI window that shows the bookmarks/index

While most of the above things are fairly easily fixed with CPU speed upgrades, these things really need to be addressed in some way before it can be called a "mature" product for reading, i'd say..

You're right-- the iLiad PDF viewers don't support search yet (which I find incomprehensible), can't have multiple documents open (I think there may be a possible workaround for this, though, since unix can run multiple applications at once, but I'm not sure about memory limits) and very limited support for bookmarks. I think all these can be addressed via software, though not trivially (the user development community has discussed all of these). The iLiad is not a mature product in any sense, and certainly not for academic reading. But I think it's the closest product the market yet has.