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

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by jehane

I have no idea whether the sony will handle hyperlinks - I've never tried, and since it's a 5" screen I don't plan to read too many scientific papers on it.

My Kindle3 isn't ideal for scientific papers, but it does have capability of following internal hyperlinks pretty easily, as well as browser for following up external links. The former is relatively comfortable but could be made a lot better, the latter is clunky and supposedly experimental.

My problem has been in retraining myself to think to use the links instead of constantly blowing past them because I'm not in the habit of working comfortably with links yet.

[DMB]

I recently had to write a book review for a (print) magazine. For the first time I was doing it from an ebook. It was a non-fiction book and if it had been on paper I would probably have done a lot of flipping. But what I did instead was to mark it up as I went through and then write the review from my general impression of the book and from checking out the marked passages.

As Aleksandr Orlov would say, Simples!

[cfrizz]

Ah, now you drop the other shoe. If you had said that you want an ereader for your work as opposed to using one for recreational/novel reading your comments would have made much more sense.

You are correct, that as it stands now, they are not good for work manuals & things of that nature. However, that certainly doesn't mean that ereaders are useless. They simply aren't of any use to you for your work situation.

But millions of us are having a great deal of fun & enjoyment reading our NOVELS on one convenient, lightweight, transportable piece of equipment.

If you are not looking to start an argument, you need to disclose ALL relevant information in your first post, rather than posting inflammatory statements, then come back with the rest of the story that actually points to the reason you can't use an ereader.

Originally Posted by Huyggy

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...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

Due to my field, my books are mostly used not for recreational but for professional purposes.

I agree with cfrizz: You should have mentioned this from the first post, so we could have had a properly focused discussion.

Yes, most readers are optimized for simple page-turn book reading. For references, many of them can handle a more complex layout that includes table of contents, links (to replace some footnotes) and appendix. Advanced PDF files can include all of these things. So the problem with finding what you want isn't just with the readers... it's with the producers of textbooks and reference materials.

If entertainment-level book producers have been dragging their heels into the 21st century, textbook producers have been even worse... they've purposely tied boulders to their ankles to prevent their being dragged into the modern world. But some of those producers have even abandoned books for CD and DVD packages. Maybe the answer for you resides, not with ebooks, but with multimedia presentations.

Others have also pointed out that, even with the new materials that are out there, you will have to learn new ways of doing things, and pick the hardware that gives you the most desired options. Learning new ways can be involved, and sometimes troublesome, but as Jordan's Theorem states: "You get used to... what you want to get used to."

So, instead of looking at the ways digital documents are not exactly like paper, you should be looking at the things you can do with digital documents that will benefit you more than using paper... and ways in which you can find new ways of accomplishing the things you want to do with your documents.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

Thank you Anthem for having articulated my thoughts so clearly! It's a bit soothing to see my own feelings written here...

You are most welcome.

[EowynCarter]

That's one of the few thing that sometimes annoys me with e-books.

Mainly when the book mentions something that happened earlier, and I would like to go back to this something. With a p-book, you go close to where the passage in question is, shuffle around. Kind of hard to do with an e-reader.

Sometimes I wish I had a "go back a few pages" function.

[mrscoach]

Even when flipping through pages of a pbook, there are limitations. You make it seem like you have to go through EVERY page of a 1,000 page book to find what you want, and that it is easier to do so than with an ebook. That doesn't make sense to me.

I find it easier to look things up on my Kindle than in a pbook if you aren't using the index of the pbook. So you have many references to the words you want? Isn't it still smaller than the full 1,000 pages?

I'll admit readers aren't perfect for research, but they are a far cry from useless. Just because you do not like something doesn't mean it is rubbish and useless to everyone.

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

If all the books/papers in the scientific fields have hypertext references, hypertext table of content, maybe my appreciation would change a little.

So it's not a problem with the ereaders, or even a problem with ebooks/papers in general, but rather a problem with specific ebooks/papers.

That's fair. I've come across my share of ebooks that didn't live up to my expectations either: poorly formatted, spelling errors, OCR errors, lack of a TOC, lack of hyperlinks, etc. These are failings of that particular ebook, and certainly not a failing of ebooks in general.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

That's one of the few thing that sometimes annoys me with e-books.

Mainly when the book mentions something that happened earlier, and I would like to go back to this something. With a p-book, you go close to where the passage in question is, shuffle around. Kind of hard to do with an e-reader.

I find it easy to scroll back a few pages, or one at a time, or do a text search (using a Nook Color, reading an epub novel). Hardware optimized for software makes the difference.

[J. Strnad]

Every print book is its own display device, able to display a single title or collection of similar content. Thus, you can customize the display device for that title: A cheap paperback for a novel, which you can put in your back pocket; an 11 x 17" art book heavy enough to whack a mole; or something in between, like a large, full-color reference book.

Problem: Every title needs its own display device, so you end up with hundreds or thousands of display devices.

Any ereader is a single display device, so no, it isn't going to be perfect for every type of content. However, it may be excellent for a particular type of content, of which you can store a thousand or more on the device, which can be downloaded in a minute from thousands of miles away, and which can be made available in the first place, electronically, while a paper version might well be economically unfeasible.

So maybe, instead of having hundreds of different books of varying sizes and shapes, you might have two or three ereaders maximized for specific content. Something designed for research might well be more like a tablet computer than a dedicated e-ink novel-reading device. It might have a nice, typeable keyboard that you don't need on your novel-reader.

But one ereader to replace all books? Nope. Won't happen. Can't.

[Fastolfe]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

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...

What do you expect? That ebook reader makers admit their shortcomings? "yeah, we know, the technology is still kinda crummy and it's pricey, but hey it's better than dirt!"
Of course they're going to flaunt the superiority of their readers...

Originally Posted by Huyggy

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

If you feel the need to do that, then you are correct. Ebooks aren't for you.

Originally Posted by Huyggy

Have you used your ereader as a dictionary? It's slow and not very practical to use.

I use it all the time: as a standalone dictionary, it's a lot faster to search than a dead tree version. As an inline dictionary, I can read a book, double-tap a word and see the definition (or the translation if I pick a translating dictionary instead) appear instantly under the page. That beats any paper dictionary any day of the week.

Originally Posted by Huyggy

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!

Look, it's really a matter of compromise, and figuring out what's important to you. I'm with you on the screen and "feeling" issue: an ebook reader just isn't as nice to look at as a paper book, and certainly nowhere as nice to touch or smell. It's also more fragile, needs charging, and as you point out, it's not as easy to do certain things like flipping through the pages.

On the other hand, an ebook reader shines when it comes to information density, search capabilities, and the ability to buy a book online and start reading it instantly anywhere in the world. Also, it's often a lot easier to find out-of-print books, or books written in a foreign language, in electronic format. Finally, if you read a lot, they're supposedly good for the planet because they save trees - if you care about that sort of thing.

You need to decide what's important to you. If you're okay to sacrifice what ebooks have to offer for the privilege of handling real books, then that's cool. For me, with the advent of Pearl e-ink displays, ebook readers have now become tolerable enough to replace paper books. But that's just your choice and that's just my choice; you shouldn't make broad statements on the value of ebook readers, because not everybody has the same needs you have.

[jehane]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Sometimes I wish I had a "go back a few pages" function.

I can go directly to a specific page on my Sony, so when I want to go back a few pages to check a previous scene, I can. Sure, it takes guesstimating and searching for the right page, but so would paper. And the best thing is that I can then bookmark it for future reference if I want to.

I assumed all ereaders had a goto facility. Is this not the case?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Fastolfe

Look, it's really a matter of compromise, and figuring out what's important to you. I'm with you on the screen and "feeling" issue: an ebook reader just isn't as nice to look at as a paper book, and certainly nowhere as nice to touch or smell. It's also more fragile, needs charging, and as you point out, it's not as easy to do certain things like flipping through the pages.

Sigh

Seriously, why would anyone smell a book? Books are about words... you read 'em. If you want an olfactory experience, pick some flowers or visit a farm.

Feeling paper, smelling paper... all of that is just habit and familiarity talking. There's nothing great about the feel or smell of processed tree pulp! You're feeling and smelling more chemicals, bleaches and petroleum products than vegetable matter! You might as well be sniffing glue.

Double-check, and I think you'll find a fiddler on your roof. Well, it's time to tell the fiddler to find another venue and change his tune. It's the 21st century... we're moving on.

[Fastolfe]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Sigh

Seriously, why would anyone smell a book? Books are about words... you read 'em. If you want an olfactory experience, pick some flowers or visit a farm.

Feeling paper, smelling paper... all of that is just habit and familiarity talking. There's nothing great about the feel or smell of processed tree pulp! You're feeling and smelling more chemicals, bleaches and petroleum products than vegetable matter! You might as well be sniffing glue.

You couldn't be more correct. Smells are very powerful memory triggers. As it happens, certain kinds of paper glues instantly remind me of the primary school I attended in my happy childhood days, gasoline reminds me of when my whole family hit the road for the summer holidays, and moldy paper reminds me of my grandfather who used to lend me his old books, and whom I loved dearly. To me, it's an integral part of the pleasure of reading. It's not just about words.

Nasty smells to you, lovely smells to me; it depends on what you associate them with. I'm fairly sure a great many people of my generation associate the smell of books with lovely memories of reading by the fire in the winter, or stealing reading time at night in the attic as a kid, etc.

Perhaps today's kids are forming long-term memory associations between happy reading times and that distinctive smell of brand new electronic equipment that's been packaged in polystyrene for too long. To me, that smell is nasty, but to them, it might turn out to be the smell of their childhood in 20 or 30 years, who knows...

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

However, it may be excellent for a particular type of content, of which you can store a thousand or more on the device, which can be downloaded in a minute from thousands of miles away, and which can be made available in the first place, electronically, while a paper version might well be economically unfeasible.

Nora Roberts just smiled!

Originally Posted by Fastolfe

I use it all the time: as a standalone dictionary, it's a lot faster to search than a dead tree version.

I'm curious about the thought processes behind referring to things as "dead tree" versions: do you do this for everything that has wood in it, or is it specially reserved for heaping scorn upon printed books? I have resisted the urge to call my coffee table (and about 90% of everything in my home) a dead tree coffee table up till now, but maybe I should start? If you can make it convincing I just may do this. (Might annoy my wife if I do it for everything with wood in it that is clearly no longer living though)

Originally Posted by Fastolfe

Finally, if you read a lot, they're supposedly good for the planet because they save trees - if you care about that sort of thing.

Yes, but we forget so easily don't we? The resources consumed in manufacturing and then disposing of our e-products have about as much blood on their hands as anything else.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Seriously, why would anyone smell a book?

...

Feeling paper, smelling paper... all of that is just habit and familiarity talking.

Why do people smell wine? Speaking personally, the smell of a book speaks about the quality of a book and the processes used to bring about the result. Mass market paperbacks and finely milled paper stock from France DO NOT smell the same, have the same texture, or the same inherent qualities. A quick whiff can cue you in much faster than traveling to the manufacturing facilities to prove it to yourself.

Dismissing all of the anecdotal stories concerning olfactory associations and whatnot (which are undeniable), there is the brute, raw fact that different processes result in different smells and quality processes and materials will very frequently smell different from low quality processes and materials. You buy a well made and traditionally bound book and you want to smell certain things or you become suspect of the quality itself. Leathers have distinct odors, papers have distinct odors, quality books should have heft, et cetera.

Now, this is just what I do. Others may be doing nothing beyond the usual associations.