It's worked fairly well for music, but in the case of reference material I agree it's a poor substitute to skimming the actual book. Maybe something like a Zune

It's worked fairly well for music, but in the case of reference material I agree it's a poor substitute to skimming the actual book. Maybe something like a Zune Pass for books would be better. Flat fee, read as much as you want, keep rights to download some for keeps.