I asked my students, yesterday, if they would buy the Kindle for $399 if they could load their textbooks for, say, 9.99. Those who responded said yes (which tells us something about the cost of textbooks, too...) But they were less enthusiastic when confronted with the idea of using such a device to read something for pleasure...the idea seemed to be that for reference or school fine, but for fun, not so much.

Undoubtedly, there is a belief floating around that reading for pleasure on an electronic device would not offer the same experience as reading in print. I had the same doubts about reading novels on a PDA. But I found the experience quite comparable once I tried it and would think the Kindle with it's better screen type for reading and larger size even better.

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Charlie | cyberdash

People are sure buying it up. As of this moment, it's temporarily sold out. I wonder how many they had to start with.

I have to say I'm not sure what I think of it, having never read for pleasure on any handheld. I'd done it on my phone and that was hopeless, but that was a few years back. Maybe I'm too rooted in paper and print, in real ink and toner, or I want the heft of War and Peace so I know I'm doing something substantial and substantive. Maybe I'm just fooling myself with my romanticized notions of reading. I'm going to have to digest and think more about why I'm so attached to books as they are and not all pumped up for the likes of a kindle.

bradley || bleckblog.org

I had the best luck reading on an older Palm that had a larger black and white LCD screen. My Treo phone which had a smaller color screen was not quite as nice.

But with the Palm, I did forget after about half an hour that I was reading on a handheld. I bet the Kindle will give even better results in that regard.

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Charlie | cyberdash

I think that Brad has something here, and that as we've had the traditional paper book for a millennium or more, we have built up a strong cultural (at least in the West) connection with books--a major sentiment, if you will. This is not going to go away easily. Books are a cultural icon, no matter whether people are reading less. Books are books--they're seen as a constant of civilization. Even though students go to the library to hit the computers and the online databases, libraries are still 'the place where all the books are."
I don't think this is just an "English-major thing;" I think it's a Western civilization thing. Time in place has something to do with it; the fact that we have built a whole knowledge-acquisition culture around books has something to do with it, too.

Now, is the culture of acquiring knowledge changing like ice on a hot stove? Yup. Will books changing be part of that? Of course. But there are still hurdles to overcome--cost, reliability, accessibility, size, weight, and, again, sentiment--before the paperback at the beach (or squished under a sleeping late-night-reader) disappears.

That having been noted, I'd love to have a small Kindle-y thing I can carry in my jacket pocket that has all the Patrick O'Brian novels, plus Robert B. Parker and Margaret Maron, with C. Selfe, J. Bolter, and G. Kress for seriousness, that I can carry on planes, to doctor's offices, or to the waiting area in Whole Foods while my smarter half chooses food. Optimized for reading with bifocals, of course.

And while we're at it, could it also have the ability to wirelessly surf the Web? And make phone calls? and pick up the nearest NPR station? Maybe satellite radio? And...

I'm with you on that Bob. What attracts me to the kindle, though I don't think I'll be getting a first generation one, is the ability to carry so many "books" in one. Newsweek had a good story on the kindle, and the book, at least as good as we can expect from a magazine of that sort. Here's the link. http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

I have to say, I'm torn, conflicted or something of that sort. I love books, I love reading, but will kindle light my reading fire? Probably yeah, until I lose the battery in the middle of something!

bradley || bleckblog.org

I'm excited about this Kindle thing, too. My friend and I have been debating its merits as compared with Sony's Reader, which is $100 cheaper and comes with boatloads of free books.

I was wondering--could I work a deal with a publisher to somehow put their book pre-loaded on a Kindle, and sell that at the bookstore? If I could get several colleagues involved, it might pay for itself (especially at the lower level). So, say, all of the most commonly assigned texts for core courses would be pre-loaded on the Kindle.

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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.

this is a great idea Matt, at least from a teacher's perspective. Amazon could load textbooks on the Kindle at a reasonable price, make themselves a big pile of dough and save students some as well, all while creating a market for themselves. Too be you and I aren't in charge.

bradley || bleckblog.org

I don't if preloaded would work given that this would be best promoted as a setup for all students; their textbook needs differ so much. Makes more sense to let students do what the Kindle was designed for: download their books from Amazon.

The main problem I can see is that textbooks are so loaded with images/visuals that they would need to either be in XML or heavily reformatted. Even those produced with XML would still require some work to make them suitable for the Kindle.

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Charlie | cyberdash

Found this report about using PDAs as a cost-saving measure. I've heard that at least one school was either requiring or giving away PDAs loaded up with textbooks.

The key feature of the Kindle (for my purposes) is the built-in wireless. This would prevent the old problem of students not being able to access the online textbook from home. Fountainhead, for instance, is offering a textbook on a thumb drive, which is a nice idea, but not so good for students without computers at home. The kindle could conceivably eliminate that problem.

I do agree, though, that the grayscale is pretty limiting. On the other hand, it is supposedly easier to read prose on this than an ordinary LCD or CRT display. Haven't gotten to try one myself yet. It seems like they mostly have best-sellers in mind with this.

Then again, how often has a color image in a comp book actually been useful?

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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.

I had good luck reading text on black and white LCD PDA's, so I'm certain that the Kindle works very well.

But textbook publishers would likely also have to re layout the texts--not just deal with images. It's the whole design which is probably not optimized for the resolution of the Kindle.

But I agree. Could be a good thing. I'm just guessing your idea is a few years ahead of the actual publishing industry production curve :-)

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Charlie | cyberdash

Does anyone know if you can access wikibooks (one of wikipedia's sister project) with the free wireless, or is it strictly limited to wikipedia? That'd be great to know, since if it can do wikibooks...there's my free rhet/comp wikitext. ;-)

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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.

Well, it looks like the kindle might be kindling after all:

Kindle Swindle.

Here's a quote:

Many people will accept the restrictions that come with the Kindle, but, they should know that their decision won't only affect just themselves. If enough people accept the DRM on ebooks, there will be no incentive in the future for Amazon, or anybody else to offer non-DRM ebooks. We are threatened by the market establishing a new cultural precedence in which books become bound to our devices, unable to be shared, and unable to be moved over to a new device or competing system. We must reject DRM on ebooks and we must reject the Kindle.

DONE!

This reminds me very much of a short story by Richard Stallman--Right to Read.

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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.