Hi All,
I’ll bet many of you have been having the same conversations as we have about when we will be able to obtain reference books digitally or as e-books.
Does anyone know if any of the field guides are yet downloadable (for a price of course) in e-book? Or even in pdf?
I am interested in e-readers, but principally for carting around reference books like botanical or ornithological books, and until they start to become available, I can’t see much point in buying an e-reader. I have armloads of reference books that I can’t take with me when we go away in our campervan, because there just isn’t room.
Cheers,
Jill
Hi Tony,
I find it frustrating that field guide publishers do not produce a product that can withstand use in the field. My copy of McKinnon & Phillips Birds of Borneo etc is in sad shape after several drenchings. The only field guide I have that has any kind of serviceability is Simpson and Day, with its plastic cover, which is some protection from the elements. As you say, there are weather resistant papers out there, such as “Rite in the Rain. I would be certainly be happy to pay a few extra dollars per copy for a field guide that can handle an occasional bath. I have a map of Malaysia, published by the German publisher Reise Know how, which is water and rip proof (and I have tested it) which has served me very well on several trips and it is like new. Not even any of those annoying splits you get along the folds.
So, if there are any field guide publishers lurking out there on the list, please, can we have a field guide that is field resistant.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
PS if publishers start using the same tricks as software publishers that you mentioned, the will be a boom in second -hand books.
I wonder why publishers don’t make more use of advanced paper technologies, such as thinner, lighter plastic-based papers, such as those a lot of currencies are now printed on? Finally, why on earth do publishers here insist on giving many field guides soft covers that are larger than the text block? Any use at all in the field and it looks like a wombat’s chewed it (I’m looking at you, Simpson and Day…). Cheers,
Tony
Hi all,
I went to a talk in Bern by Prof. Peter Atkins (who is a prolific textbook author in chemistry) and it was a real eye-opener on some of the expectations of e-books. He claimed that printed books would be gone in less than 15 years (and the three bears…), but worryingly, he outlined just how content could be manipulated to maximise earnings from e-books. Of the many ways he explored, you could buy an e-book and find that you have the most stripped-down version possible, then having to pay extra to get the rest of the content (such as pictures, expanded text, animations), plus methods for making e-content only available through annual subscription. His talks with service providers hinted at some fairly harsh digital rights management methods that could mean that if a publisher wanted to, you could find yourself paying many times over for the same content if you wanted it for more than a certain amount of time, which is what appears to be happening now with in-car navigation systems. Now, despite the adulation this chap receives in some quarters, I have a very low opinion of his methods (such as his desire to ban second-hand book sellers and to charge considerably more for having answers to questions set in his text books). However, publishers are businesses and as such, they will always try to maximise their earnings, so it might not all be fanciful. I’ve not got a problem with e-books, but I think some sort of protection for consumers should be enacted before they gain much more popularity. As an example (with a very small sample size), the book I published a while back has sold 43 paper copies, but only three e-book copies, so maybe paper is still more popular at present… On a slightly different note regarding the weight of some bird guides, it looks like some books have fairly high-weight paper, which while increasing the life of the book, adds a lot to the weight. I wonder why publishers don’t make more use of advanced paper technologies, such as thinner, lighter plastic-based papers, such as those a lot of currencies are now printed on? Finally, why on earth do publishers here insist on giving many field guides soft covers that are larger than the text block? Any use at all in the field and it looks like a wombat’s chewed it (I’m looking at you, Simpson and Day…). Cheers,
Tony
Hi All,
I should also add that it is quite easy to mail an annotated PDF via IAnnotate so you can open it in another environment. You can even have a summarised version of the comments.
If anyone is interested in knowing how to do this, please contact me individually.
Cheers
Inger Vandyke
Professional Wildlife Photographer and Writer Expedition Leader – Heard Island Expedition (3 November – 7 December, 2011) Assistant Publicity Officer – Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association (SOSSA)
Mob: 0402 286 437
http://www.ingervandyke.com http://www.ingervandyke.blogspot.com
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Is it true you can’t make notes? I know pdf format supports some form of annotation, and I thought I read that at least some hand held devices allow it, although you can’t necessarily transfer notes to another device, which makes them of limited value.
I’d prefer paper copies, but the idea of being able to have several field guides in a package lighter than the lightest of them is very attractive.
I got badly bogged in sand in Little Desert a few months ago, my first experience of that. The jack just sank into the sand. I’m sure I could have found something else to put under it somewhere in the car, but Slater was handy and did a good job. An iPad might work just as well, but I doubt it would be as usable afterwards.
Peter Shute
Is it true you can’t make notes? I know pdf format supports some form of annotation, and I thought I read that at least some hand held devices allow it, although you can’t necessarily transfer notes to another device, which makes them of limited value.
I’d prefer paper copies, but the idea of being able to have several field guides in a package lighter than the lightest of them is very attractive.
I got badly bogged in sand in Little Desert a few months ago, my first experience of that. The jack just sank into the sand. I’m sure I could have found something else to put under it somewhere in the car, but Slater was handy and did a good job. An iPad might work just as well, but I doubt it would be as usable afterwards.
Peter Shute
There are a lot of pros and cons to ebooks, apps, and paper guides. A few points, in no particular order:
* Paper has been working great for a long time. To make an electronic format better, the new system needs to improve on real life. That’s a tall order. Electronic field guides manage this by integrating sounds, pictures, and search along with greater portability.
* Authors and publishers need to make money – this hasn’t been so easy using PDF and other ebook formats. (Many, if not most, manuscripts are actually sent to printers as PDF or Postscript files so it’s not as though the production of the PDF is the hard part. With something like an iPhone App, the anti-piracy stuff is build in kind of seamlessly. It doesn’t get in your way much as a purchaser but you can’t get around it easily either. This has made it possible for (some) authors to make money, even when selling apps at a low price. (Birding guides aren’t sold at low prices, sadly.)
* I’ve used Australian and US field guides on an iPod Touch now and they’re *great* to have. For the US one (iBird Explorer Pro), having plates, photos and sounds all in one place is incredibly great.
* Books are heavy. Too heavy. I have close to entire book boxes I’d like to take to some destinations. If I could only take a few on paper and the rest in my pocket or backpack, that would be great.
* The electronic field guides I have work well, I suspect, because I’m already familiar with the birds of North America and Australia enough to make them useful. If I were going someplace entirely unfamiliar, trying to narrow down what bird I’d seen on a tiny screen would drive me mad pretty quickly. (A short drive on a good day, granted.)
* It’s not an either-or situation, I see plenty of uses for paper and electronic guide, I’m thrilled when I have a choice.
* Yeah, platform wars and risks. It looks like iOS will be around, Android looks like it’s getting a lot of momentum and Microsoft has enough money to make Windows 7 a player, eventually. Why does this matter? Well, developers are writing apps for the platforms that they think they can make money off of, pure and simple. Right now that’s iOS #1 and Android #2.
* I don’t know about ereaders much and the companies that are big in that space are pretty secretive about their actual unit sales.
* You really have to try out one of these electronic field guide apps to see how great they are and how much better than a rendering of a regular book as a PDF or some such.
* Yeah, note-taking would be nice, I think we’ll see more and more integration of that sort in the future…it’s still relatively early days.
* A smart phone is a bit small…I wish Apple would make a 7 inch iPod Touch.
* Batteries
The smaller the device, the less space there is for battery. Color is also a huge drain. So, the iPad gets rave reviews for lasting 10+ hours on a charge. A black-and-white ereader can go for weeks on a charge – and they’re dead tiny.
* Gadgets are great. Until they get wet, break, get stolen, or lost.
* I’d really like to see an electronic version of Pizzey available.
* Can’t people in Aus buy stuff from the US Apple Store? I’m not sure, I have accounts at both but I also have access to a mailing address in the US for that sort of thing.
Overall, I think it’s great to have more choice. ===============================
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Russell,
This is an interesting thread. I have been thinking of the pros and cons for eguides. One thing you don’t seem to be able to do with an eguide, is to write notes etc on the “pages”. I know a lot of birders add a lot of information to their field guides, which become a great resource. I saw an amazing example of this when competing in the Frasers Hill Bird Race. One of my team mates “Uncle Fu” had an amazing copy Jeyarajasingam and Pearsons’s guide to Malaysia & Singapore. I think Uncle Fu had written more information in his copy than the authors. It was amazing. I would have loved to have snaffled it.
As a geek, I think eguides are great. As a birder, I think paper is going to be around for a few years yet. Also they don’t need batteries or charging.
Carl Clifford
On 23/12/2010, at 1:50 PM, rdwoodford@aanet.com.au wrote:
Hi everyone
If we were in the USA then this would be an easier issue to deal with. Not only do they have more field guides available as apps for iPhone / ipad /Android etc, they have a much greater range of books available as ebooks. Australian publishers continue to deny us that sort of access – but it is changing gradually.
I think for a long time, though, it will mainly be “popular” titles that are published as ebooks. There is a lot of frustration in the academic world about the lack of textbooks available in electronic format. Many publishers are reluctant to publish an ebook when they have a reliable income stream from physical copies already. From what I’ve read on library mailing lists, Australian textbook publishers will only provide an ebook when a real book is purchased, or under strict licensing conditions that make it difficult for school libraries to purchase electronic titles. For most families buying textbooks, it is easier to buy a real book that can be sold at the end of the year – that is difficult, if not impossible, due to the digital rights management embedded in most ebooks. It’s similar for textbooks that come with a CD-ROM.
I think that in Australia it is unlikely we’ll see a whole lot of ebook titles in niche fields such as natural history. So Jill, you’ll need to carry your plant, mammal and insect guides around for a while longer, unless CSIRO get on board and put the challenge up to other publishers by providing ebook versions of their titles.
By the way, there are an increasing number of e-readers with colour screens. Sony have a colour version, as do Samsung and (I think) Kobe. I’m fairly sure a colour Kindle is available in USA, so we will have it soon.
Russell
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Hi everyone
If we were in the USA then this would be an easier issue to deal with. Not only do they have more field guides available as apps for iPhone / ipad /Android etc, they have a much greater range of books available as ebooks. Australian publishers continue to deny us that sort of access – but it is changing gradually.
I think for a long time, though, it will mainly be “popular” titles that are published as ebooks. There is a lot of frustration in the academic world about the lack of textbooks available in electronic format. Many publishers are reluctant to publish an ebook when they have a reliable income stream from physical copies already. From what I’ve read on library mailing lists, Australian textbook publishers will only provide an ebook when a real book is purchased, or under strict licensing conditions that make it difficult for school libraries to purchase electronic titles. For most families buying textbooks, it is easier to buy a real book that can be sold at the end of the year – that is difficult, if not impossible, due to the digital rights management embedded in most ebooks. It’s similar for textbooks that come with a CD-ROM.
I think that in Australia it is unlikely we’ll see a whole lot of ebook titles in niche fields such as natural history. So Jill, you’ll need to carry your plant, mammal and insect guides around for a while longer, unless CSIRO get on board and put the challenge up to other publishers by providing ebook versions of their titles.
By the way, there are an increasing number of e-readers with colour screens. Sony have a colour version, as do Samsung and (I think) Kobe. I’m fairly sure a colour Kindle is available in USA, so we will have it soon.
Russell
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I don’t want to start a thread about the worth of ebooks compared with paper books. I was talking about the possibility being able to take an ebook reference book into the field when it isn’t possible to have paper books with me.
So far, responses have indicated that when I DO buy a reader (and it will happen at some stage) the only one for me is the iPad, because I want to view reference books in colour. Now apparently it’s a case of waiting until the pertinent books become available as e-books. And by then the market will have different products available.
Jill Dening Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
26° 51′ 41″S 152° 56′ 00″E
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That’s all true – I can’t imagine not having access to all the books I’ve accumulated over time. However, I have used the Morcombe Guide app downloaded to an iPod touch and found it very useful, convenient, and light. Certainly if I’m travelling overseas in the future I’ll be looking for the relevant Guides.
(While I have a mobile phone, I still see it as a tool that people can use to contact me – I rarely make calls myself.)
Regards, Clive.
I still prefer books, paper ones of course. I have enough to occupy me when on trips – things like scopes, bins, GPS’s etc. I don’t even give in to having a mobile phone ( which tend not to work in the donga anyway). iPads and eBooks sound horrendous. I often wonder why people need to have the latest gadgets.
Tony
Jill,
I think using an iPad (or similar, I’m sure another company must be working on something by now) will be better for things like field guides than an eReader. The big issue you have with thinks like Kindles for field guides is they can’t do colour. So while they are much better than iPads for reading books (non-active screen so they don’t tire your eyes out), that isn’t such a huge problem for field guides. You can already get quite a few field guides for iPad/iPhone in the USA, and a few in other countries (obviously including a bird guide in Aus now), so I think while the uptake is currently slow, it will happen eventually. Will be interesting to see how long it takes CSIRO as our biggest publisher of field guides to pick up on the technology.
Regards, Chris
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Familiar problem, made even worse then air travel is involved 😉
I’m not sure about e-readers, but more and more field guides are becoming available for smartphone operating systems, particularly iOS (Apple) and Android (Google.) Morcombe is available for Australia on iOS (worth it for the calls alone), there are two excellent guides for North America, some for Europe, and the SASOL guide for South Africa was announced yesterday.
Static e-readers might be of some use for field guides, to be sure. After using a dedicated field guide app, I’d say apps have a lot more to offer:
* Integrated sounds, links, photos, and the like. * Searching by more than word or phrase.
I find the apps good enough that I’ve been guying electronic version of books I already own for more than I paid for the books in the first place. I honestly wish I could get everything in this format. I’d still carry paper, but a lot less. ===============================
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