Reader use in the classroom

[adair]

Here's a link to a Princeton study on use of the Kindle in a university class setting. It has the advantages and disadvantages you'd expect. The materials used were provided by the instructor, and there's no DRM issues. Students were able to move the materials onto a PC if they wanted to. Not being able to do that to back up ebook purchases is my biggest objection to the current ebook sales. We get to keep our paper copies; why can't we insure that we can keep our digital copies? Anyway, this study has interesting results


http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/64/38E35/index.xml

Comments

[finch]

Not being able to do that to back up ebook purchases is my biggest objection to the current ebook sales.

Are you talking specifically about Kindle books?

[adair]

I don't have a Kindle; at the moment I read ebooks on my laptop, so I don't buy ebooks from the big sellers. I have not yet decided what reader to choose, but Amazon (and B&N as far as I can tell) don't let the purchaser have the ebook on anything that can be backed up. I have very little trust that digital texts will be retained forever. The library where I work is digitizing a lot of stuff, and they carefully retain the print copy in a non-circulating status, Just In Case.

Amazon et al. seem to see books people by as ephemera, and yes, some are. But I have nearly 3000 books listed on LibraryThing, and most of these were kept for a reason. I plan to thin them out, but many of then will be kept. I feel the same about ebooks I buy. I'm gathering ebooks from Closed Circle, by C.J. Cherry and Jane Fancher, and these I will keep, and back up. I like to control my book collection.

[finch]

Well, I don't have a Kindle, but I have Amazon's PC software it lets me download books I've "bought" (I only accessed free ones) to both of my computers and sync between the two of them. I'd consider my hard drive something that can be backed up. I know people can also sync books between the Kindle and the iPhone Kindle software, if they have both.

I've bought MP3s from Amazon and I know that if something happened to them I could redownload them. I would be surprised if that was not also the case with ebooks.

[adair]

Ah, there's been a change since last I looked in detail. I use a Mac, so PC software won't work for me, but I hope Amazon lets people download the books they pay for to a computer and then to a reader. I'll have to take a look to see what is available for the Mac. I think the ebook world is in its infancy, and has a long way to go before it is really useful for everyone. Just now the big sellers are concerned about keeping control of what they sell. I think they will run into the same trouble music has; people want ease of use, and ease to moving from one piece of hardware to another. Both books and music need to protect their material from theft, but so far it has been at the expense of ease of use and transfer. I look forward to better things. The free books, and broad format sites like Closed Circle are making ebooks viable to many.