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Matt · 11-02-2007, 06:51 AM

Hi all,

great responses - so interesting to read what you all are doing to fit the iLiad to your research practices. I hadn't even considered automating my bibliographic process - I have used Endnote for years (oh why did I ever stop using bibtex!!) but am now exploring using Zotero because of its support for online grabbing of citations.

In my current practice my keeping of references and my note-taking are separate - I've never used the note fields in any bibliographic software, keeping my comments in separate text files in a special "notes" directory. I think this is because what often starts as a short comment becomes a longer piece of text (that I later use in the actual paper.) Keeping notes in small text fields somehow stopped me from doing that kind of extended commentary - and I do everything in my power to keep myself writing! I wonder is this has something to do with disciplinary difference - I'm mainly a humanities scholar that does qualitative research on new technologies.

So are most people here using patched versions of the community iPDF? I see that many of you have created patches and that jharker is working on an all-in-one version - brilliant! I've finally downloaded shell access and ipdf_powersave_bookmarks_for_2.11.zip (the only binary I've found so far for 2.11- I don't have a linux distribution to do patching,) and will eagerly await the full all-in-one version.

Last year, some colleagues and I wrote a grant for the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) aimed at funding a research project on the scholastic use of ebooks like the iLiad. (I thought it was such a good idea, what with iRex being right there!) We had a bunch of scholars onboard - researchers in typology, librarians, folks in special collections - but couldn't get the science foundation people or iRex interested in supporting the research. One claim we made was that current ebook designs fostered passive reading practices - reading for entertainment - rather than active reading for research (e.g. note-taking, highlighting, etc.) This seemed (and still seems) like a mistake to me - academics and researchers being probably the best fit for ebook early adoption! (Just like the book itself in its print configuration.) I find it so interesting that ebook companies like sony and iRex still haven't taken researchers on board as a market, but also that the researchers themselves (you all) have taken the ball into your own hands with projects like the aforementioned patches and the all-in-one iPdf.

Finally, (and sorry for the long post) has anyone looked at using the iLiad as part of note-taking and annotation software like Pliny (http://pliny.cch.kcl.ac.uk/), AtlasTI (http://www.atlasti.com/), or NVIVo (http://www.qsrinternational.com/)?

11-02-2007, 06:51 AM	#10
Matt Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Umea, Sweden Device: iLiad	Hi all, great responses - so interesting to read what you all are doing to fit the iLiad to your research practices. I hadn't even considered automating my bibliographic process - I have used Endnote for years (oh why did I ever stop using bibtex!!) but am now exploring using Zotero because of its support for online grabbing of citations. In my current practice my keeping of references and my note-taking are separate - I've never used the note fields in any bibliographic software, keeping my comments in separate text files in a special "notes" directory. I think this is because what often starts as a short comment becomes a longer piece of text (that I later use in the actual paper.) Keeping notes in small text fields somehow stopped me from doing that kind of extended commentary - and I do everything in my power to keep myself writing! I wonder is this has something to do with disciplinary difference - I'm mainly a humanities scholar that does qualitative research on new technologies. So are most people here using patched versions of the community iPDF? I see that many of you have created patches and that jharker is working on an all-in-one version - brilliant! I've finally downloaded shell access and ipdf_powersave_bookmarks_for_2.11.zip (the only binary I've found so far for 2.11- I don't have a linux distribution to do patching,) and will eagerly await the full all-in-one version. Last year, some colleagues and I wrote a grant for the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) aimed at funding a research project on the scholastic use of ebooks like the iLiad. (I thought it was such a good idea, what with iRex being right there!) We had a bunch of scholars onboard - researchers in typology, librarians, folks in special collections - but couldn't get the science foundation people or iRex interested in supporting the research. One claim we made was that current ebook designs fostered passive reading practices - reading for entertainment - rather than active reading for research (e.g. note-taking, highlighting, etc.) This seemed (and still seems) like a mistake to me - academics and researchers being probably the best fit for ebook early adoption! (Just like the book itself in its print configuration.) I find it so interesting that ebook companies like sony and iRex still haven't taken researchers on board as a market, but also that the researchers themselves (you all) have taken the ball into your own hands with projects like the aforementioned patches and the all-in-one iPdf. Finally, (and sorry for the long post) has anyone looked at using the iLiad as part of note-taking and annotation software like Pliny (http://pliny.cch.kcl.ac.uk/), AtlasTI (http://www.atlasti.com/), or NVIVo (http://www.qsrinternational.com/)?