Your experience of e-books

[binkie]

Hello Nixie Thanks for sharing your experiences. It doesn't matter at all that you do not use an e-reader, or that you do not have regular access to e-books. I'm happy to receive comments on any kind of online format, so your responses are very useful.

(09-03-2011 05:32 AM)Nixie Wrote:  When discussing this with my daughter (14) she was highly enthusiastic about the idea, particularly about the idea of interactivity.

This is, I think, the key to successful online content of the sort under discussion. If content is born digital, I see no reason for it to observe the conventions of the physical object on which it is conceptually based. I am baffled by the insistence of publishers on presenting digital editions of journals in particular replete with page-turning actions and sounds. It is as confusing to me as the requirement made on users by some formatting and presentation styles to refer constantly between the screen and the page, maintaining an artificial barrier of intellectual function between absorbing and interpreting information: read in one case from the screen - write in the other case on the page. Being able to make notes, and retain additions, alterations and personalisations inline seems to me a far more sensible and intuitive use of digital rendition.

Clearly, though, we are in a state of transition between the experiences of digital natives (anybody born after 1995) and those of digital immigrants (everybody else!). We are all, simply by dint of being alive right now, part of the Google Generation. But we are plainly not all at ease with the implications

(09-03-2011 05:32 AM)Nixie Wrote:  So, for me reading something on the computer I associate with work of some kind.

This is interesting. It seems, if I am reading this correctly, that you associate your computer with the context of its use, rather than with the function it performs. Is this because you think of your computer primarily as a work tool? Do you feel the same way about your home computer? Would this diminish if you did not work from home?

(09-03-2011 05:32 AM)Nixie Wrote:  I do sometimes print from pdfs, usually because I want to scrawl notes on them and underline/highlight bits for later use.

Is this because you respond more readily to the linear relationship between pages? Or is it that the PDF format makes you aware that the text to which you are referring more than likely originated as a physical document? Are you returning the text to its natural state (releasing it back into the wild!)?

Five years ago, one of Pfizer's research centres moved all its knowledge and information content into an online environment. Essentially, on Monday, the library functioned as a mediator between researchers and printed content; on Tuesday, the library functioned as a mediator between researchers and online content. The reaction from the user constituency was one of almost universal horror. Licensing agreements meant printing from online content was prohibited in the case of a number of core texts, and users made repeated requests for the return of hard copy. They didn't get it - Pfizer had spent far too much money on replacing the paper. I would be very interested to hear how you would feel about the prospect of this happening in the case of your learning and research environment.