Most of the biblioblogosphere is talking about Kindle, Amazon's new e-book reader. After rooting around the Kindle site trying to find detailed descriptions of what kinds of files it supports and what the terms of service are, I have to say I'm underwhelmed.
On the one hand, I think a lightweight e-book reader with a good readable screen would be absolutely swell (especially given how much library school reading I'm taking on my Thanksgiving travels, and how I get twitchy if I go anywhere without something to read). But on the other hand, I wouldn't want it to be tied to a specific vendor, and I'd want to be able to use it as a catchall reading device for all the random stuff I get from the 'net — especially journal articles from databases, free e-texts from here and there, and text-heavy web pages I'd rather not read on a computer screen. The thing is, Kindle will let you surf the web and download things, but they have to be either in Amazon's proprietary format, in .txt format, or in mobipocket format. If you want to read HTML or PDF files, you have to pay to e-mail them to your Kindle so it can convert them.
If the Kindle is supposed to be the iPod of reading, then it should play better with free stuff. The thing I love about my iPod is that I've never once used the iTunes store, but I've got tons of sound files either converted from my CDs or downloaded (I like using it for podcasts and Librivox audio books). It doesn't look like you can use Kindle the same way. It looks like Amazon wants users to download books from them and them only.
Then there are the DRM issues, and the fact that you can read blogs on it but only from a pre-selected set, and you have to pay to read your blogs (are you kidding me?). And the lack of scholarly books to download. I'm sure e-book readers will evolve someday; I just don't think that day is today.
Of course, all of this is the opinion of someone who balks at shelling out $400 to try the Kindle and thus hasn't tried it. Maybe if they lower the price by a factor of 10...
The idea of an ebook reader definitely appeals to me, but I agree with most of your complaints.
I doubt that ANY of the blogs I read regularly would ever show up on their network.
I'm not sure how well it will play with your computer and allow you to transfer selections from the book to your computer. That would be a major problem for almost any student, I'd imagine.
Posted by: loren | November 20, 2007 at 08:29 PM
Exactly -- I don't think any of the blogs I read would show up in the preselected list either.
It occurs to me that an e-reader geared toward course packs, which are moving increasingly toward online distribution, would be a killer app for students. Provided the cost wasn't too high. If there were a way to load portions of textbooks onto it, for a small "rental" fee per semester, even better. It would certainly be a huge improvement over springing upwards of $100 for a textbook and then having the campus bookstore offer to buy it back for $10.
Posted by: Amanda | November 21, 2007 at 10:56 AM