Citations and E-Books

Tushar Rae at the Chronicle:

The inability to find passages limits scholarly research, academics complain, because they depend on citations not only to track down and analyze text, but also as a testament to the accuracy of their own work.

Dan Cohen (via twitter):

If the Kindle’s new “real page numbers” require a print edition a reference, what happens if there is no print edition? (1/2)

Doesn’t Kindle’s “real page numbers” turn printed books into the 21st century version of the platinum-iridium meter bar kept in Paris? (2/2)

Mark Sample (via twitter):

The introduction of “page” numbers is a step backward for the Kindle, a failure of imagination. Classic remediation. *Remedial* remediation.

The Kindle is a digital media reader. It is not a book. Sure there are new ways to find, cite, and share passages on the device.

Page numbers on the Kindle are like an appendix, a vestigial organ that you’ll have to remove when it becomes infected.

I encountered the difficulty of citing E-Books last semester when I used out-of-copyright titles from free providers read on my phone for class. My phone gave me page numbers, but turned a 200 pages into a 1000 pages. I ended up using the search function on Google Books to find my quotes on a traditional print copy, but that is certainly not a sustainable (or time efficient) process.

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