[blindlaw] Case Western Reserve University students will use textbooks on Kindle electronic reader, Plain Dealer, May 6, 2009

[Nightingale, Noel]

Blindlaw listers:

We recently had a discussion on this list about the Kindle.  The below article highlights the use that blind law students could potentially make of the device  if the materials on it were allowed to be accessed via audio.

Noel

Link:
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/05/case_western_reserve_universit_4.html

Text:
Case Western Reserve University students will use textbooks on Kindle electronic reader
Posted by Janet Okoben/Plain Dealer Reporter
May 06, 2009

Case Western Reserve University students will be among the first in the nation to use textbooks on the new Kindle electronic reader next fall, using a large-screen version of the device to be unveiled today in New York.

Students in the chemistry, computer science and freshman seminar classes using the handheld Kindle next fall at CWRU will be asked to compare their experience to that of classmates using traditional paper textbooks, Lev Gonick, the university's chief information officer, said in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

CWRU is one of six universities nationally picked to test the equipment, according to the report. Amazon, the company that produces Kindle, has worked out a deal with publishers to load textbooks onto the devices, which will be supplied to students, Gonick told the newspaper.

Contacted by The Plain Dealer on Tuesday, Gonick would not comment.

Amazon did not release advance information about the new device, but the blogosphere was rampant Tuesday with reports that it will have a larger screen than the current models. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the new Kindle will have a more fully functional Web browser.

The ability to link to an Internet site from text, as a way of learning more about a word or phrase, is one of the features that has attracted interest in Kindle. Books and periodicals are downloaded directly onto the device for a fee.

But will the device be as useful for textbooks, which often aren't read from start to finish in the way a reader would work through a novel?

Students flip back and forth through chapters, highlighting sections and bookmarking others. To be useful to students, Kindle textbooks also must be able to accommodate that, said CWRU students interviewed on Tuesday.

While CWRU President Barbara Snyder prepared to appear on stage in New York with Amazon Chief Executive Jeffrey Bezos today, students on campus were cramming for finals using the tools of the trade for college students these days: Laptops, iPhones and, usually, paper textbooks.

"You don't know how useful something is until you try it," said Yugarshi Mondal, a senior chemistry and economics major from Chicago, comparing the prospect of a Kindle to his iPhone, which has applications he has come to rely on.

Libby Lehman, a freshman chemical engineering major from Navarre, Ohio, said she's kind of partial to paper. Sitting at the Arabica coffeehouse on campus, with her Mac laptop front and center as she studied for her last final exam of the year, Lehman said she likes to flip through the pages of her textbooks.

A physics class Lehman took recently offered notes online, but also offered those notes printed and bound for $15 at the campus bookstore. Lehman bought the printed notes.

"Cost-wise, it would be nice" to download more course materials, but Lehman said Kindle or any other product has to be easy to use.

"It would depend a lot on the format," she said.

Mustafa Ascha, a sophomore economics and philosophy major from Gates Mills, perked up immediately when he heard about the Kindle plan on Tuesday.

Ascha, who was working on a small Eee PC laptop at a cafe in CWRU's Thwing Center, said he doesn't bring his 15-inch laptop with him to classes because it's too big, but he wouldn't be deterred by the idea of toting a Kindle.

The key, he said, will be the ease of use, because students don't want to have to learn how to use the device.

"Students want to open a book and go to a page," he said. "If you have to do any more than that, students won't use it."