It’s hard to believe, but Tom, Dan, and I have revisited the world of eBooks on Digital Campus. The biggest part of our discussion was on the merits or lack thereof of the new Kindle reader about to debut from Amazon. Of course, we have to speak speculatively, because none of the three of us actually has a new Kindle, but we were pretty convinced that it’s a loser when it comes to the kinds of teaching, learning, research, presentation, and collection of history that interests us here at CHNM.
More interesting for historians, it seems to me, is the debut of Google Books Mobile, which gives people with iPhones or Android Phones access to hundreds of thousands (some day millions) of books right there on your phone. I find Google Books incredibly useful for both teaching and research and before too much longer I expect that a very large number of my students will have access to this vast library of old books from their own mobile devices.
Whether you like eBook readers or not, give the podcast a listen and let us know what you think. Just don’t use Twitter…I’m still holding firm and so won’t see your comments there.