Ebooks: Where r the page #'s and one of my pet peeves

I understand about getting the product out to customers and I get why FL puts out Ebooks. HOWEVER! What I don't get is their explanation about "the minimal tagging to help...stay focused...."

First of all, how in the world can you "stay focused" when you're hunting down a tag? Click on a footnote and your guess is as good as mine to where it's going to take you. Either it goes to the chapter heading or nowhere at all. Doesn't help me to focus on what I'm specifically reading.

If I do want to hunt down the FN, I'm scrolling either to the end of the chapter OR to the end of the book! By the time I do that, my focus has switched from taking in the author's explanation to scrolling back to where I was reading.

FL explains why they put out Ebooks. They're designed to be read cover to cover! What? Each one of us either reads cover to cover or reads for research/study purposes and not necessarily 'cover to cover'. Regardless of linkages/FN. Whether I read a book that is linked/tagged doesn't dissuade me from reading cover to cover.

Also, I'm finding more and more books that are more academic simply don't have tagging/FN's. Why? Of all books that should be that way they should. I get that certain books like, 231/2 reasons to get a good night sleep in God doesn't need to be tagged - not a real book. But certainly, those that reference history, academics, papers etc. need to be fully FN'ed etc.

Also, if FL's rationale for helping me to stay focused is NOT showing pagination, I'm confused. UNLESS pagination is available. So when I read a book that references an Ebook in my library which has no pagination, I'm shaking my head wondering where in this Ebook is that referent. Anti-focused. Just peeved.

mm.

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Comments

MJ. Smith

if FL's rationale for helping me to stay focused is NOT showing pagination, I'm confused. UNLESS pagination is available.

IIRC the pagination is dependent on the publisher having provided it; Logos cannot show what it does not have. I share your frustration on eBooks that I would prefer to buy as research editions.

Rosie Perera

That's marketing speak to make you accept that Ebooks are more limited. They are cheaper to produce, and that is the only motivation for them having minimal tagging and in some cases no page numbers. Logos doesn't withhold page numbers in order "to help you stay focused"; if they received the page numbers from the publisher, they'd pass them along to us. Publishers produce these cheap ebooks and make them easily available to Logos (even if their subject matter seems to warrant tagging by Logos and turning into a research edition). I don't know how Logos decides which ones to turn into research editions, but it surely has something to do with how many copies of them they think they'll be able to sell. For the ebooks, they often don't sell more than a handful, and it wouldn't be worth their time to convert them to research editions. The automated process is virtually free for them.

JT (alabama24)

Also, if FL's rationale for helping me to stay focused is NOT showing pagination, I'm confused

Rosie is right... it is just the marketing team flubbing it up. Logos is not making an intentional decision to leave out page numbers "to help you stay focused." They are leaving them out because 1) the publisher does not provide them and 2) it would cost money to add them in.

When it comes to FLEB titles: Logos would PREFER for those titles to be in Logos (where they make more money), but most of those titles are not good candidates for getting the Logos treatment. Some are, but the publisher is unlikely to agree to different terms. Some are, and FL hasn't pulled the trigger to put them into Logos (sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident). Remember this, however: If Logos deems a title to be "Logos worthy," and thinks there is a chance they can get it into Logos... the book becomes unavailable to purchase. Sometimes this is over the course of YEARS. When you get frustrated, remember: You could always purchase it in Kindle. Would that be better or worse for you? (There are times where I answer both ways, but if I want to be able to have the book in my Logos Library, the answer is always "worse.")

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285778#Comment_1285778

Thanks all 3. I get the rationale. As they say, suck it up, to which I say, I'll try.

JT? To your question about a Kindle purchase. Often, in an Ebook when a reference is put out, I'll copy part of it and search my library. I'll usually find that book, of course, if I have it, and treat it as a found FN. So no to Kindle and yes to Ebooks - [+o(]

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285783#Comment_1285783

Often, in an Ebook when a reference is put out, I'll copy part of it and search my library. I'll usually find that book, of course, if I have it, and treat it as a found FN. So no to Kindle and yes to Ebooks

Mostly that is the case for me as well.

When I am reading a book "cover to cover," my preference is on a kindle paper white. When I need to be able to highlight, mark up, take notes, etc. I want it to be in Logos. I loved the old "send to kindle" feature and wish Amazon would make it such that Logos could add that back in. My last couple attempts to manually send to kindle failed.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285778#Comment_1285778

Rosie is right... it is just the marketing team flubbing it up. Logos is not making an intentional decision to leave out page numbers "to help you stay focused." They are leaving them out because 1) the publisher does not provide them and 2) it would cost money to add them in.

Also, unless there is a print edition as well (which sometimes there isn't), there ARE no page numbers that would make sense to add. The pagination in the digital book depends entirely on how big the font is and (for Logos) how big the window you're displaying the text in is. There's no hard-copy page number to reference.

If you need to cite a digital book that has no page numbers in it, there are now protocols for doing that. Kindle gives you a "Location" number which is accepted for academic work. And Logos gives an article # and offset (which you can copy using "Copy Location as L4") that should be a unique and repeatable identification for where in the book you are.

Many style guides such as Turabian / Chicago Manual of Style say you can leave the page number info out if it's not available for digital sources, or include chapter number and section heading instead. The assumption is that if someone really wanted to follow up on your citation, and they had access to the same digital book, they could search in the book to find your quote or the content you're referring to. 99.9% of the time nobody will care to follow up on your citation, though. Unless their name is Christian Alexander. [;)]

Also, usually with digital citations, you include the URL which will take people right to the spot in the digital resource. Kindle doesn't provide URLs to jump to locations in books, but Logos does.

Jan Krohn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1285787#Comment_1285787

Most books are available for searching on Google Books too. That's what I use when I need to look up a reference, or want to cite an unpaginated book in a research paper. Older books (PD) are usually also on archive.org.

I'm aware of the article+ offset link, but find it quite cumbersome compare to the "Kindle location", which seems to have become a normal way of citing in academia.

What I've suggested before (maybe a bit too hidden in the depths of a thread) was the introduction of "Logos location" as a direct competition to the Kindle location.

A "Logos location" wouldn't depend on the publisher supplying page numbers, so it could easily be used on both Logos and Ebook editions. And now, FL marketing team, please note: The name "Logos" would suddenly start appearing in countless papers!! Isn't that an incentive? [:D]