e-book is not a book

Woa technology is crazy...

 

For me, keeping up with technology is no fun but a necessity ( kepeksa, jv.).

I equip myself with a tablet to help me read e-books or e-publications which come in pdf, djvu, e-pub, and God knows what else (Speaking about the name 'tablet', it's just dawned to me that the same term ('tablet') also refers to the slab of stone used by ancient Egyptian to write the hieroglyph thingy magicy before they worked it out on papyrus? No?). 

All right then, I'll continue. Reasons? Complicated. To mention some: 

1. Lots of books now come as e-publications or in downloadable pdf versions which need a gadget to read them. Not to mention journals which are definitely on-line except for those archive ones. 

2. Printing is expensive (see more in “Hail Photocopy service in Indonesia” in my blog later) … 23c/page… and we are talking about books here … with hundreds of pages… Some you printed would be just put aside because they are not related...

3.  It is tiring to get involve in the ‘art of recall’ (recalling and getting a recall) with regard to library books. Meaning: you can only hold some books for a short while before someone else recalls the books. So the most effective and the cheapest way is to skim read the books quickly and scan the important pages in pdf to reread later. That way you save time to send and get the books to and from the library.

4. To tell the truth, I'm under deadly deep pressure to finish my thesis, so I sacrifice my usually fun 'bed-time' readings to catch up with thesis materials. Meaning: journals and academic books before I sleep... huhuhuhuhu T.T no more Twilight, Harry Potter, the  Girl With  the Dragon Tattoo, etc., etc. ... (anybody wants to give me an award for this? :( ...).

5. I can use my laptop to read some e-books and e-pubs but mine is 14" laptop which conforms the safety standard as a work station but not a comfortable gadget to hold when I want to do bedtime reading (imagine my struggle to read journals n books from my laptop while laying on the bed... :)...).

Well, those are my main reasons to have a tablet. 

Anyway, I think I won't be able to claim my membership as a human being if I  don't have any complaint about this new technology, will I? 

It is that the old woman in me keep saying that,'Yeahhhh... e-book is not a book. It definitely is NOT.' I may look fancy and posh... reading via a touch-screen tablet but still it is not my style of reading.

Having a printed book is really convenient... whenever I am slipping to my dream world, I can always drop the book on my lap, drop it on the bed, put it under my pillow or simply drop it on the floor. But I can't do the same thing with my tablet. I have to put more effort to stay awake while reading since I'm afraid of breaking the tab when I  drop it on the floor or if I accidently sleep on it. But it is good in a sense that I won't switch off 5 minutes after I start reading the journals or the academic books like I usually do ... tee hee... 

Well, while I  must admit that tablet helps me finish my readings, my heart longs for the good old printed books. Here I am talking about 'loss', not 'gain'...

P.s. new habit develops slowly but its effect is starting to take over bit by bit. It was like when I was in the middle of opening a file in my laptop and someone stopped by to talk to me. When she left, I touched the name of the file in the screen but nothing happened. I touched the screen harder, still it didn't react. Again I tried, it didn't work. Mentally I started to see a big banner with the capital letters: 'PANIC'  in front of me when I slowly realised that 'Hey! My laptop screen is not a touch screen.' hehehe ... :D...