Survey of practitioners, mostly librarians, who used e-book readers, mostly Kindle, Sony Reader, or Stanza for iPhone, who viewed one of three ebooks, and reported on navigation, formatting, errors, search, note-taking, and other questions. The purpose was to compare scanned eBooks, XML versions, and those obtained from vendors. "Titles formatted for existing handheld devices," report the authors, "are not yet adequate for scholarly use in terms of replicating either the benefits of online collections-cross-searchability, archiving, multifarious interactive components-nor certain aspects of print editions that users reported missing, such as being able to mark up and rapidly skim text." I wish they'd compare these things with reading on browsers, the way I read this paper. Browsers work just fine, have none of the limitations of eBook readers, and are free. Via Tony Bates.
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