On Jun 10, 2010, at 9:06 AM, Michael McCracken wrote: > Touché. :) > In fact, despite my original motivation for Skim (I don't like wasting > paper) - I still often print things, especially if they need a lot of > annotation.
Perhaps it's a generational thing and I'm not well-adapted to working directly from the computer screen---but I find that I can usually read on paper more effectively. I do think that there are cognitive benefits to reading on paper, for instance, being able to see the whole page at once, knowing how much more you have to go in the paper by the number of pages left to go, and other design elements of print media. Also my annotations often go all over the place, arrows pointing everywhere, scratch writing in the margins, and so on. But lately, when I have had to read papers line-by-line, Skim is better---I can zoom in really close and then put in notes, underline things in red, etc. Then I have an outline of the paper in the Skim notes. My comment about the clipboard notwithstanding, there is no question that digitization is epochal--- > However - the specific benefits I see for reading papers on an iPad are: > > - don't use paper OK, but paper is a renewable resource, I don't know about the power used to run the iPad or mac. I'd like a foot-pedal, like on a sewing machine, that charges the laptop/iPod etc. battery. Or a hand crank. Just a thought... > - capacity - I can carry all the papers > - assuming Skim notes - searchable notes (this has been very useful > for me with Skim) These, with "searchable papers" below, are the real meat and potatoes. Reading one thing reminds me of something I read somewhere else, I go to that thing, which I have in my vast "Papers" folder, I need to look up a word in a dictionary, I have the one on my iPod Touch and the one built into OSX, and if I can get online, almost any other dictionary or encyclopedia I need; and then I can look up books in the library, search PubMed, go to the author's web page, etc. Plus all of the W3C manuals, the last 300 years or so of natural history literature via BHL, etc., etc. This is the kind of thing I spent months doing in grad school, including having to photocopy everything I needed to keep. The connections between these various sources are preserved by way of the BibTeX records and Skim notes, and recording them is almost completely integrated into the process of exploring the literature, web, etc. > - easy to send a copy of an annotated paper to many people For instance, three sections of Philosophy 110, or everyone on the tenure review committee. > - zoom can be very handy for charts n' graphs. I have been working on transcribing Darwin's manuscripts---we have high quality scans, ie, 6000 x 8000, which means I can look at a single dot of ink or a letter in a 2-inch square window at 2000 times actual size. Looking at the original manuscript, i.e., the sheet of paper in the library, this kind of detail is impossible. The idea of annotating the manuscripts with skim notes, for instance, to create a manual for decoding Darwin's handwriting, is exciting, to say the least. > - searchable papers (see above) ------------------ Adam M. Goldstein PhD, MSLIS -- z_california...@shiftingbalance.org http://www.shiftingbalance.org http://www.twitter.com/shiftingbalance -- http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=180621 -- (914) 637-2717 (msg) -- Dept of Philosophy Iona College 715 North Avenue New Rochelle NY 10801
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