Going Shelfless

Continuing my experiment to “go shelfless”, I’ve been checking out ebooks, inspired by one of my readers Nicola, who left a comment about Mobipocket books. I blogged about listening to audiobooks which don’t take up any shelf space and which allow me to multi-task a few weeks ago. So it made sense to check out this other option for non-physical books, especially as my house is already brimming full with books and I’m going to have to move to a mansion if I continue my current rate of book-buying - or at any rate a giant warehouse.

Mobipocket offers ebooks for download which you can read on your PC and also PDA/ mobile phone via their MobiReader software. At first, I wasn’t convinced - yes, I would save shelf space by converting to electronic books but surely, it would be very uncomfortable reading tiny print on my mobile phone or tiring on the eyes reading on a computer screen. Well, I was in for a surprise.

More ergonomic than a paper book

The MobiReader allows you to increase the size of the book font and also zoom in so that the text is huge on the screen. Reading an ebook this way on my desktop or laptop means I can sit back in the chair, my head and neck straight (instead of hunched over a paper book) and turn the pages by clicking the arrow key on the keyboard. The page changes rather than scrolls down so the experience is closer to that of non-computer based reading.

You also don’t have the problem of trying to keep the pages open that you have with a paper book - and worrying about cracking the spine if you try to get the physical book to open at more than a 90 degree angle. I set the font to a huge size on my laptop, place the laptop on the coffee table a little bit at a distance, sit back in my armchair with the wireless keyboard nearby. My hands and arms are free until the moment I need to click the arrow to turn the page.

So no more cramped hands and arms or crook neck and shoulders.

Also, being at the age where I need reading glasses, I am finding some small print in physical books a drag. Being able to increase the font size and zoom has minimized the squinting and headaches that can come with poring over tiny print.

Moving about the ebook

You can also move about the book by using the “go to page XX” function. Embedded chapter links mean you can go to the contents page and click on the chapter you want to be taken straight to that chapter. You can search the book by keyword as well. And there is a cute function where you can add bookmarks which are little page creases in the top right of the virtual page, just as you would turn the corner down in a real book.

Being used to moving about Word and Excel documents using “search” and moving about the internet by clicking on links, I found that it was quite intuitive moving about the ebook using similar techniques.

Active reading

The other great thing I’ve been enjoying is the note taking function. You can select a word or phrase and click “add a note” - a dialogue box will open up for you to type your note (and on my touch screen phone, I can even add the text as a handwritten note using the “draw” function). You can then see all your notes for that book collated together and clicking on a note will take you to the selected word or phrase in the book. I’ve used this function to remind myself of other books and authors referred to in the book I am reading so that I can check them out later.

Alternatively, if I am online at the time and feel like taking a break from reading the book, I can immediately check out Amazon or Mobipocket or other online bookstore for the books and authors mentioned. Or I can google to find out more about a topic mentioned in the book.

If you had an e-dictionary installed, you can also select a word or phrase you did not understand and look up the word. I am thinking about getting a French/ English dictionary to help me out as I read Le Monde and other French magazines.

All this seems quite natural to me as I am now so used to active reading online - when I read blogs or newspapers online, I may follow links or google to find out more about a topic or look up words or information on Wikipedia or I may bookmark an item to return to later.

Software for ebook reading

I like MobiReader but there are also other formats - Adobe Reader, Microsoft Reader and eReader are some of them. From what I can tell, MobiReader has more of the active reading options as I’ve described above than the others and can be used on a variety of devices including dedicated ebook readers.

Range of books

There are not as many ebooks out there as physical books at the moment but the range seems to be growing. A number of bookshops in the UK are reportedly going to be pushing ebooks this year. WH Smith already has an ebooks store online. Borders is revamping its website and the new one will apparently include ebooks and also trumpet the dedicated ebook reader the iRex Iliad. Waterstones has a few ebooks and is apparently going to be selling the Sony Reader. Blackwells, the academic bookshop, has a ebook store that focuses mainly on academic books. There are also online stores that sell only ebooks - check out BooksOnBoard, MobiPocket itself and also eBooks.com.

You can also get out of copyright books for free download from a number of specialist online websites like ManyBooks.net and Feedbooks.com.

What ebooks am I reading?

I downloaded “1968: the year that rocked the world” - about the revolutionary year 1968 - from Mobipocket.com for around £5. It seemed appropriate to be reading that on the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 riots in Paris.

From Blackwells, I discovered “The Internet - A Philosophical Inquiry” on special offer for only £1.

From ManyBooks.net, I’ve downloaded for free Walden by Henry David Thoreau, The Prince by Machiavelli, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (in English, though the French version is also available) and The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Limited sharing

The only thing about ebooks that are digitally rights protected is that you can’t share them or give them away as easily as you might with a physical book. You can read them on up to 4 devices (ie PC and other device) so if you want to share them with someone, that other person will have to be given access to your main library/ account to access all your books via their PC/ device which would become one of the four that you are allowed to have. Not being able to share or give away ebooks is not a problem in my book (ha ha) because I don’t like to lend or give away my books unless they are not ones that I’ve enjoyed and are taking up too much shelf space. With ebooks, I can just leave such books in my digital library without their inconveniencing me by taking up too much room - or delete them altogether.

Conclusion

I’ve been quite taken by ebooks, I have to say. My first choice is likely to be audiobooks, still, for the reasons discussed in my blog post about audiobooks but the choice of books available in audio is even more limited than the choice of ebooks. If I must read a book with my eyes, then I like the active reading opportunities for ebooks and also the ergonomic aspects. I will definitely be adding to my eLibrary and may even consider buying a dedicated eReader (another gadget!). Unfortunately, I cannot switch entirely to ebooks yet and there are still some books that I will have to buy in paper form as they have not yet been made available digitally but I am hoping that that will start to change and that publishers will start to release books in multiformats in the near future.

ebk