Comments from Tracy

Well without my knowledge apparently the only way anyone could comment on my post was if they had a blogger account. I actually did not know this so I changed the settings today so that anyone that wants to leave a comment should be able to now! Hopefully I won't get some weirdo posting weird stuff on here but I am sure I can remove that if need be.

I discovered this when Tracy from Student Tablet PC sent me a comment about a comment (go figure) that I left about their most recent podcast. If you still have not checked it out I suggest you do!

Here's the comment...
"For eBooks, I think both Eric and I agree that we still like the non-digital version of the book. In fact, most students I know with tablets value the paper textbook and even use it frequently. The thing we're trying to push is a digital version available so that one doesn't have to scan for hours to use tablet functionality and to save on weight when needed. I like to have the book open on my desk at home, but no way I'm carrying two 7 lb books with me to class or in my backpack at all. That's a lot of valuable time wasted during breaks, lunch or bus rides when I could be reading."

I personally thought for awhile that we could go completely without those big and heavy books but Eric and Tracy must have already known better and only wanted to have a digital edition on top of their paper book brother. Recently I have concluded that this would also be the most preferred method for me as well.

The main slogan that ebooks stores such as Mc Graw Hill and SafariX have going is that they claim their ebooks are cheaper. This much is true and I didn't mind saving over $150 this semester by going the ebook route but I truly do miss my paper textbooks and although I have not decided yet, I may go back to that method.

In a perfect world a publisher would sell me their textbook and provide a digital version with the book. Then I could use the textbook at home but would be able to use the digital one in class, on the bus and on the go. I sometimes take for granted that my school is a commuter school so my car is never more than 15 minutes away from my class. So when I spend an entire day at school I often used my car as a locker so I would not have to carry all my books with me all the time but could get to them if I had to. I know friends at MSU and U of M that have to walk great distances to get to class and this would not be practical for them so having a ebook in their case would be very beneficial.

Also saving time by not having to scan them would be a tremendous benefit. I know I was only able to scan about the first 9 chapters of my Anatomy book this term before classes started and my schedule got incredibly busy and spending the time to scan them without a auto paper feeder was not a practical use of my time anymore. I had ebook editions for my other classes and that were stored on my tablet and ready to go whenever I needed them and this was incredibly nice!

The best thing about having an ebook version for me is having it almost all the time but more importantly is having digital versions of all the figures. I am a visual learner so when I can copy and paste those figures into my notes and make little comments around them it really turns on the learning process for me. My histology book last semester did not have a ebook version but did ship with a CD that had all the figures on it and I found this is incredibly useful and if publishers are not willing to include an ebook version with their regular textbook a CD filled with all the figures would be nice at the very least.

There are consequences to ebooks alone though and I hope to point them out throughout this semester since it seems that if you want to purchase an ebook you are going to have to go the ebook route or the paper textbook route and there seems to be little space in between. Although there are two current options I think if you would like to have both a digital version and paper.

1. You could buy the paper version and scan and digitalize it yourself but this requires a lot of work in my opinion. or


2. Buy an ebook version and then print out the entire book yourself

The second option is the one I am looking into right now since I have already bought the ebook version this semester. A lot of the time you may even skip certain chapters in class so having a hard copy in that case may not even be necessary. The thing I have to look into is how much printing all those pages is going to cost. I have no idea how many pages my printer can print without having to buy a new ink cartridge but I suppose since an ink cartridge for my printer costs around $30 and if I can get away with 2 for a 1000 page book I would break out about even if I had bought the textbook alone. We always seem to have paper in the house so this would not be an issue. I also need to go to Kinkos and see how much they charge per printout and see what kind of deal I would get there.

So it's not a perfect world and this whole ebook thing still needs some work but I think publishers have made some effort we just need to push them a little harder so we can make it work better for all us.

Thanks Tracy for the email and can't wait for the second podcast!

posted by Jason Dorko at 11:35 AM 0 comments links to this post