Popular blogger Tim Challies explains his reluctant decision to migrate to e-books.
http://www.challies.com/articles/going-all-in-with-ebook
Interesting that one concern he mentions is future viability of Logos, something we've talked about extensively on these forums.
Popular blogger Tim Challies explains his reluctant decision to migrate to e-books. http://www.challies.com/articles/going-all-in-with-ebook
Thanks for pointing out this blog by Tim Challies. His opinions represent most of my thoughts as well.
This is true but the end of that paragraph he reminds us of the risk of any medium. Here is a quote from his article:
[quote]"The companies. My primary concerns are not with the medium itself but the companies behind it—Amazon and Logos. If I am going all-in with their platforms (Logos for reference and commentary works and Amazon for most other things) I want to have assurance that the companies and their platforms will continue to be accessible and extensible for many years to come. Then again, a paper library is only ever one flood or fire away from destruction. There are few certainties in a world like this one."
Popular blogger Tim Challies explains his reluctant decision to migrate to e-books. http://www.challies.com/articles/going-all-in-with-ebook Interesting that one concern he mentions is future viability of Logos, something we've talked about extensively on these forums.
I've pretty much done the same thing myself in recent month. I'd previously made the decision I'd purchase books on Logos rather than paper, but within the last year I've decided to do the same with non-Logos books. I've read 12 books this year, and only one of those was in paper format (an obscure academic work from 2002 which isn't available electronically). I even spent £40 (about $65) last week to repurchase books on Kindle that I already owned in hardback.
In an age of housing down-sizing there isn't room for a large space dedicated to storing a library of print books in a manner which makes them readily accessible (i.e., not stored in boxes). It would therefore seem that the future belongs to ebooks.
Thanks for pointing Challies blog post out Bruce though I read his every day and would have seen it anyway. Good info for all though. I pretty much go along with his sentiments on ebooks. I buy virtually all of my books now on either Logos (Faithlife) or Amazon. While nothing is completely safe I think that these companies will be in business for a long time (much longer than I am around almost for sure).
I've been completely digital for 5 years now. The only drawback I have had is that new works don't get into Logos quick enough. If it releases today, it will be in Logos (hopefully) three months later. Sometimes, it is quicker, but rarely.
I don't have any issues with ebooks, but I haven't been able to convince my wife to follow my example.
There are some gaps that need paper copies, but they are few. I'm still paper, pen and print Bible before Logos to keep my focus.
Yeah, I think it is inevitable for future generations.
I've been all in on digital for about 8 years now. It's only getting better.
I even spent £40 (about $65) last week to repurchase books on Kindle that I already owned in hardback.
I have turned my most useful bible reference books into digital PB in Logos and am only keeping the few books (a few dozen) that I will want to read again as proper books! (At my age forgetting easily means that I can enjoy reading some books again as I forget the details [:D] .) All others are already digital. All new ones I buy as Logos or Kindle. Normally I can change the format of the latter with calibre and store the epub on two or three free cloud companies.We want to be certain that Logos et al will be around for decades. Let us accept that NOTHING on this planet is that certain!
My current purchasing status is this: Logos gets most of my cash. Through them I buy essential resources. Kindle and Vyrso books I'll buy only if they are dirt cheap. For me, they're not versatile enough; scanning and flipping through a physical book still has enormous value. When Craig Blomberg's Pentecost to Patmos book showed up cheap on Vryso, I sold my hardback version. Now, I regret it because the Vyrso version has no divisions within the chapters and acts almost like a PDF. Price still matters. Integration and full search ability in Logos is a worthwhile premium.
My current purchasing status - I still buy more in dead-book format than as ebooks - especially because Logos has less than half of what I need ... and no that is not because I am Catholic as few of the unavailable books are Catholic.
I'm in a similar position MJ, 12 text books for this semester, 1 in Logos. I used to make threads, and email my sales person the book lists from school, and beat the drum, but it didn't ever seem to make a difference. Not that I am buying much from Logos for the next two years.
I'm still caught half and half. I love the idea and features of electronic books, but love the physicality of real books. Ebooks are like a long distance relationship with your spouse, while real books are like having her in the same room as you. Same "mind", but totally different experience.
One project I've embarked on lately is digitizing my own books that I'd like to keep, but have no deep attachment with. For anyone who is replacing their physical books with ebooks, this might be a viable option. I bought a heavy duty paper cutter for $100 off eBay that I use to chop off the spines, a ScanSnap iX500 for about $450, and Adobe Acrobat Pro to OCR the files.
When I set the scanner at 600 DPI, I can scan a 300 page book in about 15 minutes or so. Set at 300 DPI it would take only a few minutes. I did 11 books a few days ago over 3-4 hours. At 600 DPI the OCR quality is pretty good, and as a PDF the file can be read and searched on most devices.
I am using Logos mainly for Bible studies, if I want to read larger portion of material, I need to print out to read. I still prefer to read my physical Bible & books, then I may have a rough idea of the orientation of the needed info (eg upper left-hand side, right bottom).
I only lately own a Samsung Tab, and I get lost with the orientation of info when trying to scroll verically or horizontally.
How may I read ebooks more efficiently? since that I have plenty of books in Logos and pdf, thought it may be time for me to make full use of them.
Thanks for any advice.
How may I read ebooks more efficiently? since that I have plenty of books in Logos and pdf, thought it may be time for me to make full use of them. Thanks for any advice.
Personally, I find a proper e-reader (e.g. Kindle Paperwhite) much more satisfying than a tablet. I would not have gone all out for eBooks were it not for the fact I owned a Kindle. In fact, we sold our iPad after buying the Kindle.
In fact, we sold our iPad after buying the Kindle.
Interesting that you did this. I decided to keep both and still prefer to take notes on my iPad to have them integrated into Logos. Ideally I would love to see the day with the ipad with have an e-ink option which would be easier on my eyes but for now I just adjust the screen as best as I can.
Greg, have you concluded that the conversion to Logos PB not worth the extra labor?
Mark, would it be fair to say that you rely on the Logo's "Send to Kindle" function?
I liked Kindle books, too, until my wife passed away & I asked how to get her books (which I've inherited with access to her Amazon account) transferred to mine. After investigation, Amazon folks concluded there's no way. Books are tied to one user account, period.
I've ended up writing off Kindle as an eligible provider of my e-book library, though I use Send-to-Kindle for reading purposes, at times. Even then, though, I don't like the way books sync or don't sync, & the way that book settings in Kindle get synced back globally to my notebook library. Usually, I end up even reading on my laptop, since any questions that I have are FAR more easily researched on it than on the Bible app for Kindle or Android (both of which I use on occasion).
Food for thought...
I discovered a new option that Amazon came out with last year called Family Library. It allowed my wife to build her own Kindle library and each of our libraries are now shared across all the household Kindle devices and apps. Check out the link - it was quite easy. You still have keep her account active. I trust that someday Amazon will work out a way to transfer books within a family or as part of an estate. Probably tied up with publishers.
Here is a link that Challies mentioned in his posting. This is from Michael Hyatt who has a blog on leadership but was CEO of Thomas Nelson. He is moving off of ebooks this year and has a list of reasons why. He has been a supporter of them in the past.
http://michaelhyatt.com/ebooks-2016.html
I have to say that I try to get most of my books in ebook; Logos or Kindle or some other source. I find that my weakening eyes prefer the ebook. Also I like the indexing, searching and copying of text. I do think there is a visual issue of not seeing a paper book on a shelf in order to remember that you have a copy of such and such book. I still buy a number of paper books as there are a lot of older books that are not in digital format.
Scott,
I don't think it is. To do it right would be a time commitment I'm not interested in. While there are ways to export the OCR text to Word documents, it would take a long time to clean up the text. Not impossible, just not anything I think worth doing. A searchable PDF serves my needs for the sort of books I'm scanning.
Personally, I find a proper e-reader (e.g. Kindle Paperwhite) much more satisfying than a tablet. I would not have gone all out for eBooks were it not for the fact I owned a Kindle. In fact, we sold our iPad after buying the Kindle. Mark, would it be fair to say that you rely on the Logo's "Send to Kindle" function?
Yes, but my reading is quite broad, and about half my reading will be Bible/Theology (mostly, but not exclusively "Send to Kindle" from Logos). The other half covers history, science and fiction, and will be bought for Kindle if possible.
I did a quick survey of my 2015 reading:
If I exclude 'secular' books, the chart looks like this:
So far in 2016, the data is much simpler (I tend to devote January to 'secular' reading):
Audible: 3 books (inc. 1 'Christian' book)
Only 3? What keeps you from listening to more audio books? Does Amazon UK have discount deals on Audible books once you own the Kindle edition (like they do for many titles in the US)?
Audible: 3 books (inc. 1 'Christian' book) Only 3? What keeps you from listening to more audio books? Does Amazon UK have discount deals on Audible books once you own the Kindle edition (like they do for many titles in the US)?
Yes, they do.
I think the main reason I don't listen to audiobooks is that I don't commute. I pastor in a village church, and I live in the village. Even if I'm visiting people I'm likely only to spend 5 minutes or so travelling between each home.
Interesting. [:)]
I remember someone your way encouraging me to broaden my horizons to how far away I might be willing to relocate. He was giving an example and the range was under 350km. My willingness was already over 1200km! [:)]
My boys go to school ~12km from our home and the travel time is between 15-25 minutes each way... which means that I have 30-50 minutes in the car just transporting my boys to school M-F. Having audio books allows me to "read" much more than I could otherwise.
Hello, fellow ebook lovers! I'm Daniel, and work in the marketing department at Faithlife. Our team really enjoyed reading Tim's post, as we're passionate about seeing people utilize the tools that work best for them in their bible study.
We wrote an "open letter" response to Tim on the LogosTalk blog. I think you've made some valuable points here in this thread, and I would encourage you to continue this discussion in the "comments" section below the blog. There are lots of people who are on the fence in this area, and hearing why others use their digital library would be helpful and interesting.
Find our blog post here.
Have a great weekend.
Hello, fellow ebook lovers! I'm Daniel, and work in the marketing department at Faithlife.
Great to have you participate in the forums Daniel. I hope you are able to join in more in the future.
We wrote an "open letter" response to Tim on the LogosTalk blog. I think you've made some valuable points here in this thread, and I would encourage you to continue this discussion in the "comments" section below the blog. There are lots of people who are on the fence in this area, and hearing why others use their digital library would be helpful and interesting. Find our blog post here.
Thanks for creating this blog and sharing it here as I think it makes a good contribution to this discussion. Well done!
THANK YOU! That's a good interim step... apparently not available when I called, circa end of 2014.
The Book That Isn't Really There Digital Texts and Declining Discipleship John J. Bombaro
"When we accommodate our Bible reading practices to the age of digital texts and the Internet, we may only be contributing to the biblical illiteracy, doctrinal ignorance, and sacramental neglect of the contemporary church."
