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Old 04-22-2008, 02:41 AM   #56
James Bryant
Ebook fanatic since 1962
James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.James Bryant could sell banana peel slippers to a Deveel.
 
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Posts: 92
Karma: 3033
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: By the sea in Southern England
Device: Cybook3/REB1100/Kolin/iRex iLiad/JetBook & JB Mini/Onyx C67, T68.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yvanleterrible View Post
<SNIP!>Ebook readers were not meant for scholarly use but for reading novels. Since pages take so long to turn you must be going crazy just trying to find your references, I did and gave up.
At present ebooks are less convenient than they should be for scholarship.

But they're not just for novels - they are so convenient for textbooks, handbooks and manuals as well.

And the fact that the present generation is less convenient does not mean that we should not demand better ebooks with improved functionality in future generations. We should push its evolution until the pips squeak and it does let us do everything we want .

I chose the Cybook over the Kindle because I do not live in the USA and I want all my books with me - but I loved the functionality implied by the Kindle's keyboard. I have not explored what can be done with it (lack of time - I have been in 36 countries in the last 12 months and fly to Utrecht to lecture in a few minutes) but could list a dozen useful features of a smart book if I did have time, and hope that it, or a future model, has, or will have, them all.

PCs do these things already - but they're just not that comfortable as reading devices.

James - who wants a PC and an ebook, and will do different things with them
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