5 ms·

Physical books are still better than e-readers because you can put sticky notes on the pages, jump back and forth between pages quickly, and even start to know

by jpcom 2y ago

Physical books are still better than e-readers because you can put sticky notes on the pages, jump back and forth between pages quickly, and even start to know where pages are simply based on how many leaves/pages are split between your left and right hand. Textbooks are basically reference books, my favorite dictionaries I start to "learn by hand" to know where to flip to approximately to start my search.

throw5959 2y ago
My sister that's studying medicine says that her books would be totally ruined in half a year if she used them like she uses the virtual ones.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  How does she use the virtual ones?
  - pwillia7 2y ago
    encoded
  - throw5959 2y ago
    Ndr42 said it better than I could.
- ndr42 2y ago
  The same is true for my students (german school system, iPads form 7th to 13th grade): They are marking, annotating and rearranging parts of the digitized pages as they like. It would be impossible with printed books. (ok, they could take a picture with the camera and do the same) They have/use printed books but most of the students are borrowing them from the school and are not allowed to write in them. So I use mostly digital material and most of the books stay at home for studying (the books are heavy).
imadethis 2y ago
I'd agree except for the ability to search in an e-book. There's nothing worse than knowing the textbook in front of you contains the answer you need but not remembering which of the 1500 pages contains it. Being able to CTRL-F saved me hours of time when I went back to school after e-books became common.
- groby_b 2y ago
  A decent index solves that just fine. And usually outpaces ctrl-f chasing for a given word, because it's indexing by ideas, not words. (If it's a decent index, that is :)
  - doug_durham 2y ago
    That not how indices work. It is by person or subject not "idea". You can do the same thing but better with a "ctrl-f" search.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Not really. An index is also a list of ideas you should search for. Search for a synonym and control-f fails, but the index will have a "see also" for that, or worst case lets you scan for interesting words without reading the whole book. The index will also leave out all the places where a word happens to be used but are not useful to someone searching for the term. Of course a good index is hard (read expensive) to write and so many books didn't have good indexes.
      - eesmith 2y ago
        I got "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" for Christmas, by the Weinersmiths. The index is so good I've shared my happiness about it several times.
    - smarx007 2y ago
      Good indices are built atop a taxonomy that is then used extensively to list related taxonomic terms. This will give you direct hierarchical terms (loosely maps to what I guess you refer to as by subject) but also related terms. A good indexer will also exercise judgement and check with the author if certain terms are related and in what way. Let me give you an example of a high-quality index entry from the Software Architecture in Practice (Bass et al. 2021) [1]: Availability analytic model space, 259 analyzing, 255–259 broker pattern, 240 calculations, 259 CAP theorem, 523 CIA approach, 147 cloud, 521 design checklist, 96–98 detect faults tactic, 87–91 general scenario, 85–86 introduction, 79–81 planning for failure, 82–85 prevent faults tactic, 94–95 recover-from-faults tactics, 91–94 summary, 98–99 tactics overview, 87 As you see, it lists a number of taxonomic terms that are merely related to each other and you might not think about Ctrl+F-ing for them unless you already want to search for them. You may come to this entry knowing about CAP and navigate away to analytic model space, 259. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-architecture-in-practice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-archit...
sharkjacobs 2y ago
On the one hand, yes, I agree. There's something about the tactility of a book, about dogeared pages, and marginalia, and having muscle memory to open a book at about the same spot where I left off. I grew up with that and it's a very comfortable skill set. On the other hand, I've learned ways to manage and reference information in digital formats. Bookmarks and links and pasted snippets. Attachments and full text search. Not to even get into real sicko stuff like Notion and Obsidian and DEVONthink. Being able to easily flip back and forth between pages is a very useful technique, but so is being able to snap a screenshot of a pdf and keep it open it in another window. I'm a sucker for paper but I'm resistant to the idea that all of these things are irreplaceable
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >I'm a sucker for paper but I'm resistant to the idea that all of these things are irreplaceable This, I'm really comfortable with technology, but I feel like a boomer when I watch kids that have grown up with it their entire lives. Some people don't need the ability to cross reference things much, but folks who do develop the skills the need without having to revert to printed material.
iforgot22 2y ago
My high school was mainly textbooks, then things were more digital in college. Normally I'm against fancy new tech, but this felt like an improvement in hindsight. I was never missing the book I needed, there's cmd+f and page skip, I can annotate without ruining it... The real problem seems to be licensing. Lots of books are physical-only, and the digital versions are those annoying "epub" files instead of PDFs.
- nottorp 2y ago
  Aren't PDFs a relic of the past, when you wanted to print digital documents on paper? Epubs can be reflowed to fit any screen. If done properly at least. For PDFs you basically need an A4/letter screen to read them comfortably.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    Yes and no. PDF's work well for a sufficiently large e-book reader. Full-sized isn't essential, though I find the 13.3" display I use is quite pleasant to read --- roughly equivalent to a large iMac Retina display for reading ease (less overall real estate, but more comfortable to hold in one's hands, and of course, read under bright light / direct sunlight), and vastly superior to a typical smartphone. Smaller displays of 8--10" should work in most cases and are far more affordable. The exceptions are typically scans from print, especially of small-font and tightly-rendered journal articles, or works with extensive graphics and diagrams. Those with young eyes can probably manage better than the olds. ePub fits any sized display, but there are times when fixed layout truly is preferable for reading, context, understanding, and juxtaposition of text and graphics, etc. With a fixed layout and a competent layout engine or editor this can be optimised. With a flexible layout* (HTML, ePub, etc.) the dynamic element pretty much always leads to compromises or gaffes in layout and positioning. Fixed-layout also means that spatial memory of where within a document, chapter, and/or page specific elements / contents are. Dynamic layout greatly reduces the ability of those who have strong spatial memory of written materials.
    - iforgot22 2y ago
nfw2 2y ago
Many of the beneficial affordances you mention that are available for print but not in ebooks is partly because ebook technology is kind of bad. Navigation and annotation for example could be much better in ebooks if developers put more care into those ergonomics.
the_clarence 2y ago
I personally never used any of these things back when I was a student
Suppafly 2y ago
>Physical books are still better than e-readers because you can put sticky notes on the pages, jump back and forth between pages quickly, and even start to know where pages are simply based on how many leaves/pages are split between your left and right hand. Only because you prefer to work that way, someone that has grown up with everything digital has equivalent skills doing that stuff using tabs, digital sticky notes, bookmarks, and such.
eviks 2y ago
> jump back and forth between pages quickly You can't do it quickly. Jumping between random pages isn't useful (and not faster than in an ebook), so you want to jump to a specific page, and here ebook is much faster, whether you're opening a page number or a page with some content you remember > know where to flip to approximately to start my search. Or you can start precisely with an ebook
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  With the use of bookmarks (prepared or improvised with index cards, etc.) or sticky notes, precision jumping within a physical book is very quick, easy, and useful.
  - eviks 2y ago
    Of course it's not, you can't fit all the words in a book on index cards, you can't fit all the appearances of a given character in a story, all the memorable highlights- all trivially done at scale in a digital book. You can't jump from the index at the end to the required 5 pages where this term appears at the speed of a click And then your highlights also can't unstick because there is some dirt that ruined the stickiness of a note. And your carefully prepared unsticky bookmarks (you didn't have sticky notes around, so you've followed your advice and improvised) can't all fall out just because your book fell with its back up
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      I'm not claiming that physical books have all the properties of digital ones, or vice versa. But there are reasonable affordances to a practical extent within both formats. I have a large print collection, and a much larger digital one, presently largely on an Onyx BOOX ebook reader. I'm well acquainted with the capabilities and limitations on both systems. (I've discussed the BOOX device fairly extensively in previous HN comments for those interested.)
      - eviks 2y ago

by jpcom 2y ago

throw5959 2y ago

My sister that's studying medicine says that her books would be totally ruined in half a year if she used them like she uses the virtual ones.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
How does she use the virtual ones?
- pwillia7 2y ago
  encoded
- throw5959 2y ago
  Ndr42 said it better than I could.
ndr42 2y ago
The same is true for my students (german school system, iPads form 7th to 13th grade): They are marking, annotating and rearranging parts of the digitized pages as they like. It would be impossible with printed books. (ok, they could take a picture with the camera and do the same) They have/use printed books but most of the students are borrowing them from the school and are not allowed to write in them. So I use mostly digital material and most of the books stay at home for studying (the books are heavy).

imadethis 2y ago

I'd agree except for the ability to search in an e-book. There's nothing worse than knowing the textbook in front of you contains the answer you need but not remembering which of the 1500 pages contains it. Being able to CTRL-F saved me hours of time when I went back to school after e-books became common.

groby_b 2y ago
A decent index solves that just fine. And usually outpaces ctrl-f chasing for a given word, because it's indexing by ideas, not words. (If it's a decent index, that is :)
- doug_durham 2y ago
  That not how indices work. It is by person or subject not "idea". You can do the same thing but better with a "ctrl-f" search.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Not really. An index is also a list of ideas you should search for. Search for a synonym and control-f fails, but the index will have a "see also" for that, or worst case lets you scan for interesting words without reading the whole book. The index will also leave out all the places where a word happens to be used but are not useful to someone searching for the term. Of course a good index is hard (read expensive) to write and so many books didn't have good indexes.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      I got "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" for Christmas, by the Weinersmiths. The index is so good I've shared my happiness about it several times.
  - smarx007 2y ago
    Good indices are built atop a taxonomy that is then used extensively to list related taxonomic terms. This will give you direct hierarchical terms (loosely maps to what I guess you refer to as by subject) but also related terms. A good indexer will also exercise judgement and check with the author if certain terms are related and in what way. Let me give you an example of a high-quality index entry from the Software Architecture in Practice (Bass et al. 2021) [1]: Availability analytic model space, 259 analyzing, 255–259 broker pattern, 240 calculations, 259 CAP theorem, 523 CIA approach, 147 cloud, 521 design checklist, 96–98 detect faults tactic, 87–91 general scenario, 85–86 introduction, 79–81 planning for failure, 82–85 prevent faults tactic, 94–95 recover-from-faults tactics, 91–94 summary, 98–99 tactics overview, 87 As you see, it lists a number of taxonomic terms that are merely related to each other and you might not think about Ctrl+F-ing for them unless you already want to search for them. You may come to this entry knowing about CAP and navigate away to analytic model space, 259. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-architecture-in-practice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-archit...

sharkjacobs 2y ago

On the one hand, yes, I agree. There's something about the tactility of a book, about dogeared pages, and marginalia, and having muscle memory to open a book at about the same spot where I left off. I grew up with that and it's a very comfortable skill set. On the other hand, I've learned ways to manage and reference information in digital formats. Bookmarks and links and pasted snippets. Attachments and full text search. Not to even get into real sicko stuff like Notion and Obsidian and DEVONthink. Being able to easily flip back and forth between pages is a very useful technique, but so is being able to snap a screenshot of a pdf and keep it open it in another window. I'm a sucker for paper but I'm resistant to the idea that all of these things are irreplaceable

Suppafly 2y ago
>I'm a sucker for paper but I'm resistant to the idea that all of these things are irreplaceable This, I'm really comfortable with technology, but I feel like a boomer when I watch kids that have grown up with it their entire lives. Some people don't need the ability to cross reference things much, but folks who do develop the skills the need without having to revert to printed material.

iforgot22 2y ago

My high school was mainly textbooks, then things were more digital in college. Normally I'm against fancy new tech, but this felt like an improvement in hindsight. I was never missing the book I needed, there's cmd+f and page skip, I can annotate without ruining it... The real problem seems to be licensing. Lots of books are physical-only, and the digital versions are those annoying "epub" files instead of PDFs.

nottorp 2y ago
Aren't PDFs a relic of the past, when you wanted to print digital documents on paper? Epubs can be reflowed to fit any screen. If done properly at least. For PDFs you basically need an A4/letter screen to read them comfortably.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Yes and no. PDF's work well for a sufficiently large e-book reader. Full-sized isn't essential, though I find the 13.3" display I use is quite pleasant to read --- roughly equivalent to a large iMac Retina display for reading ease (less overall real estate, but more comfortable to hold in one's hands, and of course, read under bright light / direct sunlight), and vastly superior to a typical smartphone. Smaller displays of 8--10" should work in most cases and are far more affordable. The exceptions are typically scans from print, especially of small-font and tightly-rendered journal articles, or works with extensive graphics and diagrams. Those with young eyes can probably manage better than the olds. ePub fits any sized display, but there are times when fixed layout truly is preferable for reading, context, understanding, and juxtaposition of text and graphics, etc. With a fixed layout and a competent layout engine or editor this can be optimised. With a flexible layout* (HTML, ePub, etc.) the dynamic element pretty much always leads to compromises or gaffes in layout and positioning. Fixed-layout also means that spatial memory of where within a document, chapter, and/or page specific elements / contents are. Dynamic layout greatly reduces the ability of those who have strong spatial memory of written materials.
  - iforgot22 2y ago

nfw2 2y ago

Many of the beneficial affordances you mention that are available for print but not in ebooks is partly because ebook technology is kind of bad. Navigation and annotation for example could be much better in ebooks if developers put more care into those ergonomics.

the_clarence 2y ago

I personally never used any of these things back when I was a student

Suppafly 2y ago

>Physical books are still better than e-readers because you can put sticky notes on the pages, jump back and forth between pages quickly, and even start to know where pages are simply based on how many leaves/pages are split between your left and right hand. Only because you prefer to work that way, someone that has grown up with everything digital has equivalent skills doing that stuff using tabs, digital sticky notes, bookmarks, and such.

eviks 2y ago

> jump back and forth between pages quickly You can't do it quickly. Jumping between random pages isn't useful (and not faster than in an ebook), so you want to jump to a specific page, and here ebook is much faster, whether you're opening a page number or a page with some content you remember > know where to flip to approximately to start my search. Or you can start precisely with an ebook

dredmorbius 2y ago
With the use of bookmarks (prepared or improvised with index cards, etc.) or sticky notes, precision jumping within a physical book is very quick, easy, and useful.
- eviks 2y ago
  Of course it's not, you can't fit all the words in a book on index cards, you can't fit all the appearances of a given character in a story, all the memorable highlights- all trivially done at scale in a digital book. You can't jump from the index at the end to the required 5 pages where this term appears at the speed of a click And then your highlights also can't unstick because there is some dirt that ruined the stickiness of a note. And your carefully prepared unsticky bookmarks (you didn't have sticky notes around, so you've followed your advice and improvised) can't all fall out just because your book fell with its back up
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    I'm not claiming that physical books have all the properties of digital ones, or vice versa. But there are reasonable affordances to a practical extent within both formats. I have a large print collection, and a much larger digital one, presently largely on an Onyx BOOX ebook reader. I'm well acquainted with the capabilities and limitations on both systems. (I've discussed the BOOX device fairly extensively in previous HN comments for those interested.)
    - eviks 2y ago