Kindles Yet to Woo University Users

The Princeton University paper writes Kindles yet to woo University users. "When the University announced its Kindle e-reader pilot program last May, administrators seemed cautiously optimistic that the e-readers would both be sustainable and serve as a valuable academic tool. But less than two weeks after 50 students received the free Kindle DX e-readers, many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices."

“Much of my learning comes from a physical interaction with the text: bookmarks, highlights, page-tearing, sticky notes and other marks representing the importance of certain passages — not to mention margin notes, where most of my paper ideas come from and interaction with the material occurs,” he explained. “All these things have been lost, and if not lost they’re too slow to keep up with my thinking, and the ‘features’ have been rendered useless.”

“The Kindle doesn’t give you page numbers; it gives you location numbers. They have to do that because the material is reformatted,” Katz said. He noted that while the location numbers are “convenient for reading,” they are “meaningless for anyone working from analog books.”

I found this article referenced from this ars story: Business school ditches Kindle DX after trial run. "When asked to fill out a midterm survey on whether they would recommend the Kindle DX to incoming MBA students, 75 to 80 percent answered "no," according to Darden director of MBA operations Michael Koenig. On the flip side, 90 to 95 percent answered "yes" to whether they would recommend it to an incoming student as a personal reading device."

I can completely understand this. Just reading for pleasure (or interest) is different than trying to take notes on what you're reading (or in general). I much prefer blogging about online text rather than printed text (or film/tv) for purposes of quoting. But if I'm reading something long, taking handwritten notes is much easier than typing them. And I'm extraordinarily comfortable with my editor of choice (emacs), having used it for decades. Just moving my hands back and forth between a book and a keyboard is annoying. I have a laptop, but it's been connected to a monitor and keyboard for months because it's much easier to position a book in that configuration than next to a laptop.

In a lecture I still think handwriting notes is easiest. As I write, I indent and draw diagrams and annotate previous notes in the margins and use different colors to make things I want to follow up with stand out (I typically use a Cross Tech 3 Pen or a now discontinued Rotring Quattro Pen). I also position text on the page to show various relationships between ideas.

A laptop is the only alternative that comes close to the efficiency of handwriting for me. But it's too bulky, particularly without a surface to rest it on. I can type quickly and there's the great advantage of having the text be searchable, etc. But it does seem to be the case that writing something out rather than typing helps me to learn and remember the material better. I was never a highlighter, but writing notes on what I read always helped me in college.

I was ok with graffiti on a Palm Pilot but it was never good enough for me to take meeting notes with. I type on the iPhone only the shortest things I can. I was hopeful that an iPad would be some useful medium in note taking at talks but I don't think it is yet (though I am interested in trying :). I haven't tried Dan Bricklin's Note Taker App yet.