Title: How Do You Read?

Author: Martin Moene

Date: 06 January 2017 21:14:31 +00:00 or Fri, 06 January 2017 21:14:31 +00:00

Summary: Sven Rosvall shares his perspective on electronic publications.

Body: 

There have been discussions/opinions/thoughts about electronically distributed club magazines in ACCU and many other organizations I am a member of. These discussions have sometimes been calm and sometimes heated. Some of my clubs have gone entirely electronic for cost reasons and to save volunteer labour in printing/folding/enveloping/sending their magazines. Even though I am a computer professional, it took me a while to get comfortable with electronic magazines. I’d like to share my journey with others to make their lives easier. Note that I am not going to suggest that ACCU goes entirely electronic, even though this is an organization with technologically advanced members. Hopefully the text below will also help others become comfortable with electronic magazines or help them decide whether they want to stick with printed magazines.

First we need to look at the ‘reading experience’. (A term I first heard when I worked for Amazon when they introduced the Kindle reader.) How do we read and what do we want to get out of the reading? The ‘how’ starts with ‘where’, as in where do we read? I prefer to read my magazines at bedtime when I relax after a good day. Another place is on the crowded tram on my way to work when I have nothing else to do than to wait for arrival. Sometimes reading happens in the armchair, half-listening to the TV and my wife. Sitting at a desk in front of a big screen does not appeal to me as it is not a relaxing place. A desk is the only place you can have your 10 kg PC. In bed, you can use your 3 kg laptop, but the keyboard is in the way and you have to sit up in the bed. The laptop works fine in the armchair though. Instead I prefer to use my ½ kg tablet in bed. It is light enough that I can hold it in my arms. A thick book is just as heavy but more awkward to hold. The best device for the bed is an e-book reader like the Kindle which only weighs 200g. On the tram, I mostly use the Kindle thanks to its size and weight. Sometimes I use the phone but it is a bit fiddly. I don’t like using the tablet on the tram as I have to stand most times and there is a greater risk that I will drop it when people squeeze by to get on or off the tram. The Kindle is slightly smaller but the lower weight means it is easier hold on to and move aside to let people pass. And the Kindle doesn’t break that easily if I drop it. An A4 magazine just doesn’t work on this tram as there is not enough space between the passengers or in my pocket.

A note on the Kindle is that my version is not suitable for some magazines as it doesn’t do colours. The Kindle Fire has colour but I would call it a tablet in this context.

It has been said many times that a computer screen is hard on the eyes compared to a printed book. This is certainly true for the old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screens where the pixels were blurred. An old or badly adjusted CRT is certainly difficult to read and the eyes get tired very quickly. The flat LCD screens found in laptops are much easier on the eyes. Modern ones are even better. I just got a new laptop with twice the resolution found in HD TV screens. Each letter is nicely rounded just like in print. The electronic ink screens found in electronic readers like a Kindle also have very good resolution and these screens reflect light rather than using back-lighting. This makes the electronic ink comparable to printed paper.

Different kinds of texts require different reading techniques. A fiction text is usually flowing from the start to the end. You just need to remember where you were between reading sessions. For a book, you just put your bookmark between the pages you have just read. E-book readers remember where you were. PDF documents, like the electronic version of CVu and Overload, are trickier to keep track of. One trick is to never close the document and never shutdown the computer/tablet. This is not always practical. Adobe Reader allows you to add sticky notes. Create one such note and write “Read to here” or something similar and save the PDF document. Later, when you open it again you look up that note and continue reading. Adobe Reader can also highlight text just as you would do on paper with a highlighting pen.

Non-fiction text usually has references to previous or following sections. When you read a printed book or magazine it is easy to hold a thumb where you are and flick through the pages to find the section you need. It is easy to go back to your thumb again. It is trickier to browse through an electronic document in the same way. Electronic documents on the other hand sometimes have links that refer to the sections with the explanation I needed. Most electronic readers have a search feature to aid searching.

Another challenge when reading electronic magazines is which ones you have not yet read. I put printed magazines in a pile on my bedside table. When I have finished reading one, I archive it on my book shelf and continue with the next magazine in the pile. Electronic magazines require a different organization. They arrive as PDF documents attached to emails. Initially I tried to use my inbox to keep track of which magazines I hadn’t read yet. This filled up my inbox as the PDF documents can be quite large, and the magazine emails were soon hidden in the large amounts of emails in my inbox that I hadn’t cleaned up. Instead, I save each magazine file from the email as they arrive in a folder for each organization I am a member of. This is my archive, which is also backed up regularly. Once archived, I copy the magazine file to a separate TO READ folder. When I have finished one magazine I simply remove it from this folder. As I use several devices for reading my magazines, I synchronize this folder with my tablet and my phone. Personally I use Microsoft’s OneNote for this synchronization. You may use cloud based solutions like Dropbox or use a local file server if you have set one up. Using a synchronized folder between different devices helps you remember which magazines to read as you now see the same list of magazines whatever device you use. When you have finished one, you just delete it and it will disappear from the other devices too. The Kindle does not have any good tools for such synchronization so I have to copy the file manually and remember to remove the magazine from the Kindle and the shared folder. Of course, it is a lot easier if you only use one device for reading the magazines.

If you are reading on a laptop, tablet or a smartphone you have another challenge: the distractions of social media. Usually these social apps are running in the background and show a notification now and then. Of course, you want to see the cute kitten and respond to your friend. And then you find it hard to get back to your reading and catch up where you were.

This is my way of reading electronic magazines. Others may have other systems that suit them better. Now that I found my way, I actually prefer electronic versions as they don’t take any space in my bookshelf. And I find it easier to find old articles in my electronic bookshelf.

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