The problem in my current project is that the three volumes of Chirbes’s diaries are thick and heavy. I work in different places, such as:
– my office on campus
– my bedroom
– the library
– the other library
– a coffee shop
– and so on
I have to lug these volumes everywhere because I need all three at all times when I’m writing. I read gladly on Kindle, but for work, I need paper books. I can’t imagine having to find my way around the digital versions. Every scholar I’ve talked to agrees very enthusiastically that it’s impossible to work with digital copies. There is something in the structure of the human brain that requires a physical book you can touch and leaf through.
Absolutely. And particularly with academic / secondary texts. The tech has improved many things as time goes on, such as quick access to endnotes/footnotes and almost-painless return from them; but still there is no way our senses can work intuitively with comparing a position number to the overall stated size; or really use a “percent completed” as well as just SEEING the stack of pages on either side of your finger.
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