On 6/27/08, Anne Prescott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks, David. Now where to I apply for a grant to pay for the toner, paper,
> and maybe new printer.? Great news, though, and cheaper than the original.
I found this en route to something else -- a German edition of ancient
commentaries on Virgil -- which I couldn't find for sale anywhere, at
any price. I don't like to read on the computer, but I find myself
doing it more and more:
- Nine times out of ten, that's how our library handles ILL of journal articles
- Most of the Google Books are searchable. Search isn't accurate
enough to say something does NOT exist ("prove a negative"), but it
will turn up things that aren't in an index. (And searching Google
Books can find things in books that you wouldn't have thought of
looking in, because they aren't on your subject.)
- The downloadable versions are easy to store and transport. The old
industrial-strength filing cabinet that I bought used in graduate
school -- and thought I would never fill -- filled up about six years
ago, and to make room for new articles, old ones periodically have to
be archived in my campus office, where they get forgotten (because I
don't see them en passant), and where their contents aren't instantly
accessible.
- Oh yes, and they're very affordable.
Negatives:
- Eyestrain: did you see that Twlight Zone episode where the
omnivorous reader got sealed in a library after a nuclear war -- and
then broke his glasses? That could be me if I'm not kind to my eyes.
- Impermanence: compared with rag paper and even microfilm, DVDs and
hard drives are very fragile, and even when they don't break, changing
formats can render old data unusable. On the other hand, copies are
easy and cheap to generate.
- With a PDF file, you don't get all the sensual experiences of paging
through a well made book.
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Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
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