The Sword and Laser discussion

I hesitated as if to post this in the general area or the WEAYR area (and if a mod wants to move it or delete it, I'll understand).

Now that I'm out of school, I'm finding myself doing more and more reading on relevant topics in my current field of work (aerospace/spacecraft engineering) to learn more to be better at my job. I'm finding that more and more, I want these books to be on Kindle/ebook format, so that I can read them while I'm killing time (or while I'm eating lunch but not wanting to spill on an actual text book).

Since I think most of us like ebooks, and I also think that a lot of us work in technical fields, I was wondering what others felt about the (somewhat slower) move of technical books and textbooks to electronic formats. Personally, it's driving me nuts! There's a book I use regularly that I have in print, but would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have electronically (Space Mission Analysis and Design, in case you were randomly curious), so I could pull it up in the occasional meeting (instead of taking an action) or while I have a little down time, to learn something new. What about the rest of you?

Am I the only one who can't wait until I can download everything into my phone (or better yet, brain via USB or network!)? ;)

And since I have your attention, do any of you do Digital Design? If yes, would you mind sending me a message, I have a question on some book recommendations...

Well, I have nothing whatsoever to do with any technical stuff, but in general it seems hard to get good text books digitally. I figure it's a case of many of the popular ones being older, and the publishers seeing no need bother converting when the stuff is already out there.

When at uni, I generally found myself checking all the book lists for kindle versions, and finding maybe 3 from a list of about 30. Which was very frustrating when I lived a good enough distance away from the university that I didn't want to carry a lot of heavy books with me. The most useful books academically have so far almost all been on paper. Which is a shame, as I find digital useful for so many reasons. For one thing, I can make notes on them and highlight stuff without feeling I've vandalised a book!

Ruth wrote: "For one thing, I can make notes on them and highlight stuff without feeling I've vandalised a book!"

I know that feeling! Of course, some of my books in college were used textbooks...it was always interesting to see what other students thought was important/worthy of a highlight. Sometimes, they seemed to be spot-on. Other times...much less so. :)

What about something like: http://www.safaribooksonline.com/

I use it for programming stuff at work. I'm not sure if they carry the kinds of books you want though.

And of course it's not free, but my company provides an account for us to use.

Personally I much prefer paper for technical books. Although I can see the advantages of an ebook, particularly in terms of portability, the poor user interface of pretty much all current ereaders far outweighs any advantage as far as I'm concerned.

And what do you do when you want 2 or 3 books open at once, cross-referencing between them...?

as a gardener I don't think ebooks would be very good as they need to have good photos also I tend to have more than one open at a time when designing new planting schemes.

I'm a traditional dead tree guy anyway, but I really preferred it for undergrad and law school.

That being said, now that I'm practicing law, the movement isn't so much from paper books to ebooks per se. It's more like paper to web databases. Rather than forcing lawyers to get volume after volume of encyclopedia-esque statute and regulation books, law firms now subscribe to web based databases, such as LexisNexis and Westlaw, that have all the cases, statutes, and regulations. And the searchability alone makes this worthwhile in my opinion.

Nick wrote: "as a gardener I don't think ebooks would be very good as they need to have good photos also I tend to have more than one open at a time when designing new planting schemes."

I dunno, I do have a wonderful field guide app for birdwatching...I imagine a book for iBooks or Kindle Fire or a full-color device could be helpful...in some ways, anyway.

Tablets make all the difference. I would mot want a tecjnical book on an e-ink reader or even a small tablet, but a large tablet has all sorts of possibilities. I can get a glimpse of it by reading , of all things, Style magazine, on ,y Nook HD. You can yap on illustrations to bring up more details and tap links tp get more information, video, etc.

Rob wrote: "What about something like: http://www.safaribooksonline.com/

I use it for programming stuff at work. I'm not sure if they carry the kinds of books you want though.

And of course it's not free, b..."It may be available through your local public library. I have access to it that way. It is a nice service. They have the animal books and some other publishers in the collection.

I only read programming books on my iPad anymore. I have a few hard copies left just to have on the bookshelf, but if I never lug around another O'Reilly book again it'll be too soon. The selections on both iBooks and the Kindle store are improving all the time. And some technical publishers, like http://pragprog.com and http://oreilly.com/ do direct ebook sales. You should check with the publisher if you're not seeing stuff for your industry in the standard stores, and certainly let them know you'd pay for ebooks if they just haven't jumped on the bandwagon at all yet.

I've read a few Buddhist philosophy e-books published by Oxford University Press and I think they do a pretty good job. It also seems like they have a fairly wide selection of e-books available. Check out http://www.ebooks.com/subjects/academic/

I'm quite biased on this one. I am blind, and with computers and smartphones becoming more accessible with screenreader programs and the incorporation of Braille displays, I lean quite heavily toward ebooks. Not to mention, dead tree Braille books are frickin huge. Stephen King's It was twelve four-inch-thick volumes. Did I say dead tree? I meant forest.
I've gotta say that the usability of iBooks, and just recently, the Kindle app, has granted me access to way more books than ever before, a freedom I am still adjusting to.
However, as pointed out above, textbooks are slow to the ebook format. This can make school and college a challenge for someone who is blind. According to a recent statistic, only one percent of print material is accessible to blind and print-disabled individuals. I strongly feel that electronic books can greatly improve this situation.

Apologies for preaching. I am likewise frustrated by the slow progress of electronic publishing, and I'm glad to see my frustration is shared.