Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Kindle Versus Paper Books


For the majority of my life, I have only read paper books. In fact, I didn't even use computers until I was age 16, and most of my time in front of the screen was devoted to typing and other tasks, not reading novel-length books. It was only until two or three years ago that I started reading on my laptop. I used the Mobipocket e-book reader. This system satisfied me for short spurts only. I had to fiddle with the laptop, load the book, find a spot away from bright sunshine. It ended up being my lunch hour activity since I usually eat lunch alone.

Then the Kindle came out and I did buy a few books like dictionaries to consult on my computer – but not to read them. As a translator, is quite handy to have digital information that you can search, copy and paste anywhere. Getting out of my office chair and leafing through paper books is becoming increasingly less frequent occurrence for me. It is much faster and more convenient to have all of my information either online or on screen and ready to go.

However, it must admit that what is handy and convenient when working is not always so when I am reading for pleasure. Paper books are far more enchanting to me because I can heft them and feel the pages tickle my fingertip when I turn them. The very physical quality of paper books means that they belong on the shelf, in a drawer, on a nightstand–somewhere where you know they will be when you wake up in the morning. I have very fond memories of books at the Green Lake Library in Seattle, and I know right where they are (or at least where they were 20 or 30 years ago).

Another aspect of paper books is that, at least for me, there is a certain undefinable holiness about them. I would feel terrible if I saw a book burning. It wouldn't matter if I had read it or if I was interested in reading it, just the fact that it was being destroyed would pain me. With an e-book, I couldn't say the same thing. If someone were to delete an e-book from a computer, it just wouldn't have the same effect. After all, what is an e-book when it's "closed"? Where are the words? In what form are they represented? I'm sure someone has an explanation, but it's not the same as knowing that a printed book continues to have the same printed words in it when it is closed. You can't even really "close" an e-book.

Now that I own a Kindle, I use it often, especially with books that I do not have in paper format and that I do not wish to acquire at a hefty price. It is a device of convenience. Since I live far away from where English-language books are sold in mass quantities, I'm overbowled by the Kindle and what I can shop for at the Kindle store. No longer do I have to pay high prices for books and shipping in order to get them to Chile. Just as the Kindle store advertises, I am able to receive any book in the catalog in under a minute on my Kindle.

When I read books in Spanish, I almost always like to read them in print form. Living in Chile, a Spanish-speaking country, books and Spanish are readily available, and though not all of them are cheap, if they are worth reading, I sometimes buy them. It is interesting, but the Spanish language selection at the Kindle store is nowhere near the size of the English language selection. In fact, there are many books in Chile that cannot be found in e-book format. I think that people here and in the rest of Latin America are more interested in reading physical books than they are e-books.

The good news is that for the time being, there is no need to decide which method to stick to. When I want to read a paper book, I read a paper book and when I want to read on the Kindle, I read on the Kindle. It's that simple.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Booknizer, the official book cataloging software for Reed's Reads

Up until now, I have only discussed books on this blog. However, you should know that I am using book cataloging software called Booknizer. I downloaded it because it was offered for free on Giveaway of the Day. It might not be the first software program I've used to catalog books, and it may not be the last, but it is definitely the best one.

Booknizer allows you to catalog print books, e-books and audio books–all in the same database. It has all of the features I've seen in other book cataloging programs such as downloading a book's cover and other information from Amazon.com. However, I like the interface better than other programs, and it seems to give the user many ways to enter books into the database: by typing in the ISBN, capturing the barcode with a WebCam or simply entering the title of the book in question. You can also mass-input your books by typing multiple titles. Another feature I like is listing the book's location. This means that you can tell the program that a certain book is located on a certain shelf in a certain room of your house. Although the categories listed for this program are complete, if there is one that you would like to add, you have the space to do so via custom fields.

Though paying for software, entering records and keeping track of a catalog has its tedious side to it, there are many surprises to be discovered once you have all of your books identified. You will end up realizing that there are books in your collection you had completely forgotten about and want to reread. Additionally, in being in closer contact with Amazon reviews and descriptions, you’ll learn about similar authors that you might later read.