affordances
“JW: If you could wave your magic wand, what are the top 2 or 3 features you’d love to see Amazon add to the Kindle?
DC: First, I would really, really love to be able to write notes and annotations on an e-ink screen with a stylus or some sort of electronic pen. The ability to scrawl notes in margins and underline, star, and circle passages is the most important reason I still often buy printed books, even when they’re available in a Kindle version. I hate using the “Add Note” and “Highlight” features on my Kindle. They’re totally clunky and unnatural.
Second, I would love to have a device with a much bigger screen. I mean big enough to show at least two pages at once. Because then you could do a lot of productive cross-referencing. This is important when you’re reading something like an O’Reilly programming book. You need to be able to cross-reference the table of contents, the index, and multiple chapters really easily. Until then, I’ll keep buying print copies of books on software programming.”
Kindleville Blog
The Kindle is not a transformer that can take on the visage of a superhero or battle destroyer. Kindle is a reading device, just like a book. Physical books are not mutable either. The difference is the grasp, manipulation and hand-off of content. Here the paper book affords a persistent performative space while the Kindle affords a momentary screen image.
long term access
“Clancy observed that these discussions need to be reframed. Weíre too stuck in the embodiment of today to understand what the future might be. He thinks libraries were about search, access and preservation. He thinks the crowd has become the authority, access will be dispersed to many places and the really unaddressed and scary problem is preservation. It is no oneís job right now.” (Dan Clancy is Engineering Director, Google Book Search)
hangingtogether
Screen information specialists consider permanence as a post delivery accessory. Print information specialists consider permanence as a developer issue. For long term access permanence must be built in before delivery dependence. Print, well refined for persistence, has a special attribute of default preservation.
It is refreshing to hear from someone who knows that Google Print simulations are not real and delivered in non-persistent arrays. It is refreshing to hear that the absence of preservation service is of interest and relevant to long term access. It is refreshing to hear that there is no IT sector awareness of who is to provide preservation and that there is dawning cluelessness.