future of ebooks + Scholarly use of PG + books to take to bed
In a message dated 11/13/2004 3:37:14 PM Mountain Standard Time, shalesller@writeme.com writes:
You told us we couldn't find a quote in a large body of text, >>you tell us that typeface is important when no printed book cares, >>you complain that an ebook in Courier is hard to read, which is a bit >>like saying that it's hard to read this book because it's upside >>down.
Right on. I loathe Courier, so I don't read my ebooks in Courier; I read them on the computer in Times New Roman, and I read them on my ebook reader in Arial, because that's the default. I could change it if I wanted to. As for books to read in bed . . . well, good people, I have wonderful news for you. A version of the Rocket has been revived. FictionWise now has one available for $99 and is actively working on newer versions. Go here for more information: _eBookwise_ (http://www.ebookwise.com/) As for me, why would I (or anybody else) reading in bed want to read a paper book, which has only one right-side-up and doesn't care what position I'm in and how uncomfortable I am trying to read it in that position, when I have a lovely little device that will change its orientation so that if I want to hold it in my left hand or in my right hand or longwise with either side up, it agreeably makes its buttons available to whatever hand I want to use, and it will let me decide which of four positions is "up" right now? Oh yes, and it's backlit, so I don't have to keep an overhead light on. Believe me, you read this kind of book in bed for one hour and you will NEVER want to go back to tree books for reading in bed. (Back to the quotation I started with, I CAN read my book upside-down, because upside-down becomes right-side-up at the click of a button.) As yet, eBookWise does not sell a program for turning your own material into.rb format, but you go to the site below and download the second program, the one that supports USB or serial port, and you can turn your Gutenberg books into .rb books. Then use your eBookWise librarian to import the .rb books and put them into your eBookWise reader. _Rocket eBook Site_ (http://www.rocket-ebook.com/Readers/Software/) In fact, I will make a rash promise that I probably will live to regret, and promise you that when you buy your eBookWise ebook reader, let me know what five PG books you want the most and I'll convert them myself, though they're probably already at Blackmask in .rb format. You can also get .rb books at _Phoenix-Library - A worldwide multiformat ebook library._ (http://www.phoenix-library.org/) Among its other offerings, it has an excellent selection of translating dictionaries from and to several different languages. These are not searchable; instead, when you start to read a book that you know is likely to have words in different languages, you also load the different language, and then whenever you come to a word you don't know you tell your reader what language it is and to look it up, and most of the time the word will be present. I keep French-English and Spanish-English on my reader at all times, and add other dictionaries (which I keep in my ebook library) when I need them. So--you want a good look at the future of ebooks? Brothers and sisters, it's here. Of course technology will improve. It is the job of technology to improve. But every time it does, there will be a sufficient span of time for PG and its descendants to change the filing system into one that can remain readable. Someone used the example of Beowulf. Uh, yeah. That's a good one. I can't possibly read it in its original language, but I can read it in my original language whenever I want it. Some people find Chaucer unreadable. I don't, but I'm glad it's available in modern English for people who can read it only that way. After all, you can't understand Shakespeare unless you read him in the original Klingon. Anne
Again- the people on this list are computer savvy. My mother isn't. My students are limited. None of them have ebook readers. They are not going to spend $99 to read a book, especially one that isn't new.. And lots of
It's available in modern English in book form. A good modern
You can- if you're educated. Plenty of people understand Shakespeare. Even high school students. People in Italy can read Shakespeare. Tiny children can also- they could at the beginning of this century. My badly-educated, at-risk high school students were able to understand Shakespeare. If you don't, that says more about you than it does about early modern English. And some of us can even parse Beowulf- with a two-language version (which is how it's usually printed) the average person can read an amazing amount of it in the original, or at least grasp it. Maybe if you stopped reading Star Trk novels as literature, you'd realize you read Shakespeare's language pretty much every day. His turns of phrase are used all the time, and can be understood by people of all economic level who have the desire to read an learn- even people who cannot affor $99 ebooks to read Stephen King novels (not theat Stephen King is bad, but
-----Original Message----- From: gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org]On Behalf Of Gutenberg9443@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 8:22 PM To: gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org Subject: [gutvol-d] future of ebooks + Scholarly use of PG + books to taketo bed In a message dated 11/13/2004 3:37:14 PM Mountain Standard Time, shalesller@writeme.com writes: >>You >>told us we couldn't find a quote in a large body of text, >>you tell us >>that typeface is important when no printed book cares, >>you complain >>that an ebook in Courier is hard to read, which is a bit >>like saying >>that it's hard to read this book because it's upside >>down. Right on. I loathe Courier, so I don't read my ebooks in Courier; I read them on the computer in Times New Roman, and I read them on my ebook reader in Arial, because that's the default. I could change it if I wanted to. As for books to read in bed . . . well, good people, I have wonderful news for you. A version of the Rocket has been revived. FictionWise now has one available for $99 and is actively working on newer versions. Go here for more information: people read paper books in bed- and would prefer one over an ebook that will cost them $99 to read, and has a limited number of options. I can go to my local library and get any number of books for free, and curl up in bed with them. I can order even more through interlibrary loan, and get them in a matter of days. I can get new ones and old ones, of my own choice, in a variety of editions- not just what someone has chosen to put on the net. I can get books with illustrations in color or black and white. A book like Alice in Wonderland can be read in versions that contain illos by Rackham, Tenniel, or more modern illustrators- and the books are usually large enough for me to share with a child. For instance, i love childre's books- I was in a store today and read through several by Chris Van Allsburg. I'm sorry I didn't get to the store earlier- he was signing books. i would have bought one for him to sign. I don't think he signs books on machines. Why do I like paper? I don't need batteries or electricity. All I need is sunlight or a candle. I can pack a book in plastic and come back 20 years later to find it in working order- the technology won't have changed. In 100 years I'll be able to read it too, in many cases. I can't read books I once downloaded to 5" floppies. Soon, I won't be able to read books downloaded to 3" floppies. I can't load books to some earlier versions of ebooks. I can however read paper books without having to change the typeface myself, and I can carry them with me anywhere. I don't read twenty books at once. I read one. And I can glance ahead, go back, look at he page next to the one I'm reading, put the book down next to another book and compare the information in the two without having to spend $198, and a whole lot of other things. In NYC where I live, we are in love with technology. We have one of the oldest subway systems. WiFi is very popular among the upper middle classes. We pretty much all carry cellular phones and use them constantly. We live for our iPods and mp3 players. We are wired to the max- and in the subway, on the street and in cafes, we read paper books and paper magazines and paper tabloids. And we don't even have to change the type or pay a class-separating $99 for the right to read. When my local Barnes and Noble was selling ebooks here a few years ago, people in this high tech city, in the shadow of what was then Silicon Alley- very few sold. I look forward to the OQO and some of Sony's new products, but pay $99 to have the right to read old Tom Swift books with no pictures and not even the enticing smell that old books have? When the machine you talk about can't carry the texts I actually need on a regular basis, because I'm an academic? When pretty much all the fun books I love are only in paper form, and have pictures and other temptations to boot?? Good Lord, woman, what on earth do you read? Are you honestly saying that every book you will ever want to read is on a computer? That every book you love is usually out of print and copyright, or is on the level of John Grisham? Are you truly saying that you think the best version of Treasure Island in on a machine, and not between the pages of a book with color illustrations by NC Wyeth? Are you saying that you never look at art books, cookbooks, science books? That you only read popular literature and authors who have been dead for about a century? That the latest information about Africa or Asia was written in 1910? I have a couple of first editions by anthropologists. None of the ones I have are online. They smell musty. I know that somewhere along the line, another anthopologist loved those books like I love them. Not just the words- the books. They have marginalia. The fact that they are marked up makes me love them all the more. One day I will die and someone else will love my books and see the comments I made. They will know what I read- not only the book they will hold, but other books I mentioned i the marginalia. I will be putting a message in a bottle that will turn up in the future. I have other books that are used copies from academic bookstores- the margins told me what Professor So-and-so thought was important to his students. The notes helped me get through grad school. I made my own notes, sole the books, and passed them on. I cannot pass on a $99 machine. The individual books help the people who need them. A machine can only be held by one person and the data can be lost. I have a cookbook that belonged to my mother-in-law, now senile, that she gave to my husband, now dead. It has notes from all three of us, and stains from our cooking. I sometimes take it to bed with me, to check recipes the day before a holiday meal. You must think I'm mad to love a physical book that I will pass down to some relative of mine, who will know from which pages were stained the most what the best recipes are. There are thumb-prints all over it, and it smells vaguely of milk- it holds my favorite quiche recipe. I have another book that is made up of xeroxes and has illustrations on how exactly to prepare certain medieval recipes. The illustrations are important to me. i can hod that and take it to bed, too. When NY lost the Twin Towers a few years ago, i thought of what I would take with me if we were ever bombed and I could get out. My computer was not on the list. I thought of things I could use without a battery or any outside power. In an emergency, I could use my cookbook and read Alice in Wonderland, so I would take them along with a pot and some matches.So--you want a good look at the future of ebooks? Brothers and sisters, it's here. Of course technology will improve. It is the job of technology to improve. But every time it does, there will be a sufficient span of time for PG and its descendants to change the filing system into one that can remain readable. << Someone used the example of Beowulf. Uh, yeah. That's a good one. I can't possibly read it in its original language, but I can read it in my original language whenever I want it. Some people find Chaucer unreadable. I don't, but I'm glad it's available in modern English for people who can read it only that way. translation is by Seamus Heaney. The original text is reprinted, for those of us who want to check accuracy. << After all, you can't understand Shakespeare unless you read him in the original Klingon. there's more to reading than that).<< Anne
Where did this idea that the $99 for the Fictionwise Rocketbook is only for a license to read out of date books come from? Can someone tell us the real deal about this? Thanks! mh
participants (3)
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Gutenberg9443＠aol.com -
Her Serene Highness -
Michael Hart