Leafing Through Books : Why ereaders aren't worth a 600 y.o technology !

[Huyggy]

Hello!
I don't post here very often, only perusing through this wonderful forum to see the latest evolutions, progress in ereaders.
Thanks for all the very valuable participants of this forum so!

But, I'm still a bit disappointed by the evolution of the technology of the eraders, during all this time (I'm registered to this site for a long time now...):
They (the engineers, the tech companies...) are still advertising about the superiority of the ereaders, how the display is bigger and bigger, how the pages are flipping faster and faster and so on...

But what about the principal quality of the book, i.e the ability to leaf through it? I don't care storing 1'000 page book on my device. If I have to go through all the pages to go where I want, this 1'000 page book is useless !

Have you used your ereader as a dictionary? It's slow and not very practical to use.
I remember a time at the beginning of the e-ink when it was promised a moment when a 300 page ereader would display all the book that you want. But this hope seems so far now when I see the future evolution of the ereader.

So, sorry for that, but your bigger screen, your 32Go hard drive, your full color display won't never do the trick against a 600 year old technology as the paper booklet!
It's sad for me, and I would be happy to hear your opinion about that, what you think about this (sadly) indisputable quality of the books.

[HarryT]

Most people read books starting at one end and proceeding through, a page at at time, until they reach the other end. If you want to find specific information, you use the search facility. The reason you need to "leaf through" a paper book is because that is the only form of search capability that it provides. If I come across a character called "Ivan" 500 pages into my eBook, and I can't remember when he last appeared in the story, I can simply search my book for all occurrences of the word "Ivan". Moreover, on my Kindle, because it indexes all its content, I can search ALL my books to mind ALL occurrences of the word "Ivan". Try doing that with your paper library!

As far as dictionaries go, most modern eBook readers have an excellent dictionary built it. Just tap or select a word and a dictionary definition pops up. Couldn't be easier.

I'm afraid that I can't, therefore, agree with your views.

[HansTWN]

E-ink isn't quite there yet, but will soon be. And every new technologies has some drawbacks. When people switched from horses to cars they had difficulties to fill up the tank. And stone or clay tablets are a lot more durable than books! You can always find something.

If flipping through the pages is that important to you, then get an LCD reader or stick with paper for another year or so.

[Sweetpea]

I wholeheartedly agree with Harry on this. The only reason I leaf through a book is because I'm searching for a certain passage (which I probably won't find again anyway). But really searching, by keyword, goes much faster and has a guaranteed success. And I find using the dictionary on my ereaders a lot simpler than using a paper dictionary. Which I won't have handy when I need it (or I'd always have to carry several dictionaries with me, both English - English and English - Dutch and maybe even Dutch - English)

[jehane]

There are a few reasons why I leaf through a book.

1. To recall something that happened previously. As mentioned, it's easier to do a digital search.

2. To read ahead for the conclusion. I can still do this if I want to, by going to a specific page, but having an ereader discourages this practice, which is a good thing!

3. To sample the writing of a book/author I'm not sure about. The free samples often cover a substantial portion of the book. The only genre where this would really become an issue would be non-fiction, but for reference material I generally prefer to use either paper or computer anyway. My ereader is for linear reading.

I wouldn't consider the ability to leaf through a book as a principal quality. I think the ability to recall my place without having a physical bookmark that can fall out is a wonderful thing, and the ability to go to a specific page instantly without having to rifle through the pages is also a wonderful thing. I can also permanently bookmark my favourite scenes in my favourite novels without random bits of paper fluttering everywhere.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

But what about the principal quality of the book, i.e the ability to leaf through it?

Been trolling much lately? I'm sure there are other dead horses that could do with a little flogging.

I don't care storing 1'000 page book on my device. If I have to go through all the pages to go where I want, this 1'000 page book is useless !

Obviously you can jump to any particular page, or chapter (bookmarks, index), or use the search. That said, if it's not for you, that's cool, too. I haven't given up paper books completely, either, and probably never will. Diff'rent strokes, you know.

Have you used your ereader as a dictionary?

Yes, constantly.

It's slow and not very practical to use.

Again, it might not be for you. I for one greatly enjoy having the American Heritage, Oxford and Webster's Unabridged dictionaries at my disposal.

[Huyggy]

Thanks for the reply all. It's good to see your reactions here! I understand that not many people (nobody really?) agree with me, but it permits to precise my thoughts^^

Originally Posted by HansTWN

E-ink isn't quite there yet, but will soon be. And every new technologies has some drawbacks. When people switched from horses to cars they had difficulties to fill up the tank. And stone or clay tablets are a lot more durable than books! You can always find something.

I know, it's the beginning. But I have already heard the same promises for some time and I don't really see the future e-ink as it was expected at the start (only bigger screen, bigger HDD, more colors). I remember the first report by the media 10 years ago and when I was myself speaking about that to others at this moment...

If flipping through the pages is that important to you, then get an LCD reader or stick with paper for another year or so.

What do you mean by LCD reader? I've already got that and you can't flip through pages more than on an e-ink reader.

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Been trolling much lately? I'm sure there are other dead horses that could do with a little flogging.

I wish I was trolling. It's only my genuine feelings. You can see that I am on this forum (not posting very often but reading that very regularly) for a long time now.

Originally Posted by jehane

My ereader is for linear reading.

Due to my field, my books are mostly used not for recreational but for professional purposes. I think it's sad that the ereaders are still limited to this role and no tech companies/engineers is targeting a professional use.

I explain myself :Of course I use the research function. But, using that in a professional fields, it's rare that you're searching for ONE word or group of words. It's more an idea that you are searching, a particular argument. If I was looking for the word "biological evolution" in my books for example, I would have maybe 30 iterations of the word before finding my chapter of interest !

I understand the argument of the "look over" function when you search a word using the internal dictionary of the ereader (I already used that myself). But it's only fast and easy only if your book and dictionary are in the ereader.
Otherwise, you have to type the word, letter after letter...

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

Thanks for the reply all. It's good to see your reactions here! I understand that not many people (nobody really?) agree with me, but it permits to precise my thoughts^^

I think, there are many, many people that do agree with you.
They just aren't members of Mobileread, and they are quite unlikely to become members here.
Try looking for some bibliophile forum, or perhaps Luddite association.

Seriously. The vast majority of books I read on my e-ink reader are read page after page in linear fashion. My reader does feature a dictionary (a dozen dictionaries, to be exact, plus a full blown encyclopedia) and I will bet that I can look up any word I come across in a book faster than you can in one paper dictionary, let alone a dozen.
HarryT - the first person that answered your post has recently purchased an enhanced version of Bible that lets you access any verse much, much, more quickly than any paper issue.

There are two kinds of reference books. One kind is best used in paper form, with a dozen of bookmarks. Another kind sits on computer and lets you to do a fulltext search. And believe me, once you get used to a fulltext search, you will disdain even the most comprehensive Index.

[Latinandgreek]

You can sort of leaf through pages:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LIVoozHa6M

See 0:40 into the video.

E-book readers may not be perfect, but I do think that they can help researchers quite a bit, and with the arrival of large screened e-book readers I can only see the technology improving. It is still relatively new, after all.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by kacir

My reader does feature a dictionary (a dozen dictionaries, to be exact, plus a full blown encyclopedia) and I will bet that I can look up any word I come across in a book faster than you can in one paper dictionary, let alone a dozen.

Did your reader come with a full blown encyclopedia, or is that something that could be downloaded, perhaps in epub? I love the idea of having an encyclopedia on my reader.

[caleb72]

I've heard these kinds of arguments before relating to moving to digital and not just for books.

You move into a new world and you keep trying to use the old rules. It doesn't work and just leads to frustration.

Ereaders do not replace all the aspects of books in exactly the same way. There are some fundamental differences that don't lend themselves to exact mimicry. Therefore, you start to learn a slightly different way of doing something. Harry mentioned some of these earlier. Once you start to understand the rules of the new world well enough you can start exploiting that. But you actually do need to make some changes yourself to take advantage.

Just thinking of Kindle - the kinds of things we're talking about:

1) You need to learn that you can find passages using the search function.
2) You can use an unlimited amount of bookmarks, notes, highlighted passages to navigate through later. Take advantage of that.
3) Don't ever wonder what a word means anymore, select the word and read the definition.
4) Start getting the hang of how to jump to locations (rather than pages)
5) If you're like me and you always want to know how much you've read and how much you have left, there's a nice % figure down the bottom left.

If you spend your whole time wishing you can flip a page (just like the good old days), it probably won't be surprising that you're going to be disappointed with an ereader. But if you start trying to think of how you can utilise what the ereader has to offer, you might find yourself less disappointed in the long run.

Regards
Caleb

[abookreader]

Is it me or does this seem to be a classic case of

"This doesn't fit my exact needs so I declare it as useless for everybody."

For what it is worth I have a husband who is a Physicist with an extremely paper heavy, technical and detailed job. Over the past year he has slowly been switching to PDF/Djvu documents but not completely. He, like you, hasn't found the perfect solution - although I have to say paper isn't the perfect solution either. He travels with 3 to 4 briefcases at a time and it is often difficult for him to find the exact reference he needs. It isn't all that easy to search through 100lbs of paper pages either.

But even he will tell you it is much easier to carry the iPAD with a couple of his industry journals loaded on there for the 5 hour flight than stacks of books.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

It's sad for me, and I would be happy to hear your opinion about that, what you think about this (sadly) indisputable quality of the books.

As I have said in other posts here on MobileRead, e-book readers and e-books in general are in a very awkward position. They are real book impersonators at this point in time. They do a few things better, but many of the advantages that we associate with a bound book are most certainly missing and no digital equivalent feature has been devised to stem the bleeding. We can change the paradigms and relearn how to read a digital book and move away from the printed methods, but things need to be intuitive and far less of a mimicry. Like Doctorow said, Neither E, Nor Book.

E-books (right now) really work best for the novel readers. If you don't look much beyond John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Harlan Coben, and others for your book entertainment then you are golden, e-books work great for reading these types of books. But if you like some variety and you enjoy almost any sort of non-fiction where needing to flip back a few pages (OMG this is annoying to the point of murder on every e-reader I have tried), run end notes and footnotes (no digital equivalent worth mentioning), hold your finger in the index while you check out the pages indicated, and on and on, then you are in for a world of hurt.

I am crazy and I do end up reading the sorts of books where those types of activities are necessary on my e-reading devices and I almost always end up looking at myself in the mirror and wondering, "What is wrong with you?! Buy these in print you idiot!"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

Did your reader come with a full blown encyclopedia, or is that something that could be downloaded, perhaps in epub? I love the idea of having an encyclopedia on my reader.

I don't know what the previous poster was referring to, but the Kindle has the ability to look a word up in Wikipedia as well as in a dictionary, via its 3G (or WiFi) connection. I use this a lot - it works very well.

[Huyggy]

Originally Posted by Anthem

As I have said in other posts here on MobileRead, e-book readers and e-books in general are in a very awkward position. They are real book impersonators at this point in time. ...

I am crazy and I do end up reading the sorts of books where those types of activities are necessary on my e-reading devices and I almost always end up looking at myself in the mirror and wondering, "What is wrong with you?! Buy these in print you idiot!"

Thank you Anthem for having articulated my thoughts so clearly! It's a bit soothing to see my own feelings written here...
I know that for all the others (the so called "linear readers" as mentioned so), this technology suits to their needs so well, and it's a little difficult to have been left aside by the engineers : If I remember, at the very beginning of the e-ink, medias were professing a multiple page books made of e-ink. I was already imaging myself with that! A book where all the pages could change, thanks to this technology. So disappointing to see the evolution.

I am not a luddite neither. I 've put so many hopes in this e-ink technology at the beginning.
I don't think that (maybe I'm wrong but I'm already using an ereader and see its limits) it reflects my inability to adapt to a new technology (as the horse riders in their times who couldn't see the benefits of cars for example...) :

Granted there's the enormous benefits of the size in your pocket.
But imagine you've got a book with multiple references, placed as usual at the end of the book (as you find in all academic books, papers). Going back and forth from the paper to the references is quickly excruciating. You can always put a bookmark on the references, but how do you do when there are 30 pages of references to flip through?

It's only an example, but personally, for what I see in the academic field, when there is a an important document to peruse, a book to read (not a simple case-report, letter-to-the-editor), everybody still -unfortunately- print the thing (or buy the book).