[Alanis]

I completely agree with you, OP. I use my e-reader daily for my English and American Lit degree and I find that I can read for longer, retain more and find relevant quotations I'd otherwise have forgotten about just by doing key word searches. I'm also making and constantly updating revision materials and converting them to .mobi so that I can peruse them in between lectures etc. One of the most wonderful things I can see coming out of this is the opportunity for students and lecturers to post their own learning support materials on-line to share. Swapping seminar notes with a friend of mine really helped me to develop my own ideas and consider alternative viewpoints; I can only imagine how much better my understanding of my subject would be if it was possible to do the same thing on a national and perhaps even international scale. An e-reader isn't essential for that but it would certainly help; like most people I can't read on a screen for long periods of time or take my computer on the bus with me, and my Kindle has already saved me lots of money because I'm no longer printing out hundreds of pages of PDF.

I can see how the Kindle isn't the best tool for every subject but it's great for mine and with improved navigability and (later on) colour it will become much more accessible and useful for other subjects too. I just wish the Kindle and Project Gutenberg had been available to me back when I was in the early stages in my education so I could have devoured all of the wonderful classics I'm now voraciously devouring in my free time!