Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
I think this is a limited way of perceiving the breadth with which readers engage with books.
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No. My eyes are wide open.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
From personal experience, I can recall spending days fascinated with the mysteries of an encyclopedia. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but was simply curious about learning new things.
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Same. Most of my childhood was spent in front of a massive set of the World Book Encyclopedia (complete with the Childcraft addons and annual supplements). I read them all from cover to cover (at random) because I was incredibly curious about learning
everthing. Indices didn't enter into that picture, or that joy I experienced. By the time I was old enough to start needing to use an index, I would have killed for a search engine to focus my efforts. Now that ebooks are here (complete with search engines), I have zero interest in using someone else's curated, compiled points of interest in electronic indexes. I never don't know what I want to search for in a particular book anymore. Because I'm rarely searching for anything in a book I've not already read from cover to cover.
The fact of the matter is: only print index lovers love electronic indices. *shrug*