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

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by paolamanzini

To me it is more an issue of changing my habits, and learning on how to make the best use of what I have got.

This.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

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

every reader i have has the function to skip ahead or back multiple( usually 5 or 10) pages buy a click and hold of the page button

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by jdav

One point in favour of a manual trawl through a paper book looking for a certain character or fact, is that in your effort to find the relevant paragraph, your journey through the pages forces you to recap on much of the content. A kind of enforced revision. This results in a better knowledge of the whole book. An electronic search usually takes you instantly to the right paragraph, time is saved but you don't gain the benefit of revision. This is of course mostly relevant to academic use.

thats what i miss . stumbling upon something else when you are leafing through to find a particular passage or item. in a dictionary or encyclopedia it can take you off in a whole new time wasting tangent of discovery. one of my favorite things

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

thats what i miss . stumbling upon something else when you are leafing through to find a particular passage or item. in a dictionary or encyclopedia it can take you off in a whole new time wasting tangent of discovery. one of my favorite things

That's what the internet is for.

[Dulin's Books]

i like to do both

[Hellmark]

Many ebook readers allow you to skip around. For instance, many Sony's have number buttons to let you skip to any page in the book. Plus, most ebooks should have a Table of Contents, letting you jump to any chapter in the book. With these options, my jumping around in a book hasn't really changed.

[EowynCarter]

My reader has never lost my page. I've lost count of the number of times bookmarks have fallen out of paper books. And anyway, I still don't see how flipping between paper pages is any different to changing electronic pages.

Mine lost it's page every now and then. Usually after battery failure..

And the difference between paperbook and e-ink there, is speed.

[Huyggy]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Mine lost it's page every now and then. Usually after battery failure..

And the difference between paperbook and e-ink there, is speed.

Speed of course and something more difficult to explain like "spatial visual representation".


First test :
Have you tried to read a very long text on internet via a computer screen, scrolling down to go to the end?

It's horrible. Your brain can't do this apparently very easy task, whereas you could read so easily the same length article in a magazine.
Ereaders have improved this by dividing this long text in multiple pages, so trying to simulate a book.

Try now the second test :
Have you tried to learn a lesson, a long and difficult course thanks to your ereader?

I'm sure you could but it's not easy. When given the choice, most people will print their course.
The reason is due to our "spatial visual"feature. I've read something about that, maybe it's related to the ancient capability of our forebears, where having a cerebral representation of their space was so important, to remember where are the best fruits, where do you find water etc...
Your brain needs visual signes to remember something. The ereader offer only this little note below where it's indicated that you are at the page "12/345". It's good for a very reasonable, computer brain, but ours need more than that to have a perfect representation of the space.

And it's the same problem, not only to learn your lesson, but when you're reading a complex academic paper, where you must very correctly remember what was written before, or sometimes go back and forth a few pages before (or even 20 pages before without knowingly exactly at which page it was)

[sabredog]

A big part of my job is reading PDF documents (specifications, tender documents, contracts, plan sets et al) and The difference between a computer screen and an e-ink ereader is very distinct.

An e-ink screen provides the closest representation to a paperback page that there is at current.

Friends and acquaintances alike have told me the transition to a dead tree book to an ereader was far easier than they would have thought possible. Indeed this would be largely due to e-ink screens being so easy to read from.

I am coming from the direction of reading fiction or paperback size non-fiction ebooks, not complex scanned PDF reference works or technical documents. The 5-6" ereader is NOT designed to display such documents rather ebook novels.

If you want to read such documents consider investing in an iPad or device that will allow efficient display of PDF documents.

[starrigger]

I haven't read through the entire thread, but I agree with the original poster. Paper books are better for flipping through, or jumping around in (someone mentioned Bibles), or glancing back a few pages to remind yourself of something.

I say this as a total lover of ebooks. But mostly I read novels and short stories. I have a couple of Bibles on my reader, and for looking things up in, I have to say it's harder to do than using a paper book. The formatting is awkward and clunky, and these are modern editions. My reader unfortunately doesn't have a built-in dictionary--I wish it did--because looking a word up in a large dictionary using the search function is excruciating.

I'm sure this is changing rapidly, and by the time I'm ready to buy a new reader, I'll probably be pleasantly surprised. But in some ways, I think paper will always be better.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by starrigger

But in some ways, I think paper will always be better.

Agreed. I like e-books a lot, but there are tradeoffs to reading them vs. print books. Depending on what you read and how you read it, the tradeoffs might be negligible for some, but cumbersome for others.

People tend to fall in love with e-reading, though, and start evangelizing as if they've just converted religions.

[CWatkinsNash]

I originally felt the same way about certain types of books, but right now I've got a few OSHA manuals on my Kindle and I'm actually doing okay with those. It wouldn't work as well with the Standards books or NEC Code books, but for some of the others I'm loving it. When I take my Kindle to bed with me, it feels less like work than taking a few large paper books to bed with me. That's always a plus. Between the TOC and search I haven't had any navigational problems.

[PitterPat]

I downloaded a sample of a book about Microsoft Access to my Kindle. The screen just doesn't show enough at one time for me. The diagrams are too small to read. I prefer paper books for computer books. But I have hope that one day the technology will improve and my skills using an ereader will improve to a point that I can use an ereader for my computer books.

[Anke Wehner]

Originally Posted by Anthem

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 read it somewhere used instead of "paper", and picked it up because I thought it was funny. It doesn't have any negative connotations for me.

Come to think about it, I'm pretty sure the first time I came across it, the phrase was used by a webcomic artist to refer to the print edition of their comic, that is, something great and exciting.


I have some of the fascination with dead tree books... I snapped up an edition of an animal encyclopedia from the early 20th century (illustrated with etchings dating from the first half of the 19th century), and it is a wonderful thing to browse through and admire. I also have two copies of Macbeth on my bookshelf: The one I had to buy for class, and the one my mother had to buy for class.

You can attach sentimentality better to paper than digital files, I guess.

But if you want to read, digital files seem more practical than a huge stack of paperbacks that are so cheaply made they fall apart soon. (Bit of a hyperbole, that, but I had recently a pb graphic novel spine just break right through on first read, despite normal/careful handling. Very aggravating.)

[The Terminator]

In the last few months of twenty ten Amazon sold more Kindle edition E-books than paper backs.