Paper? Or Something More e-Tastic?

I finally got around to renewing my NEHGS membership the other day, and opted, once again, to receive a paper version of the Register. I have to admit I love getting my society publications in the mail, but I am from California, so always feel guilty about using paper when I don't have to. Plus, what's to like about a bookshelf full of dusty volumes that I can't search on my computer? And though I love to hold some paper in my hand when I read, I LOVE (like LOVE, like want to up and marry) my Kindle, and haven't read a "real life" book in the year and a half since I received it as a gift. An e-version saves trees, saves postage, saves fuel, maybe even saves gnomes. Just sayin'.

So, you would think, I'm a natural candidate for a digital version of the Register. But I'm also someone that doesn't do a whole lot of extensive reading on my computer. Too many temptations to get on Facebook, too hard to read the text on the screen, and my computer chair just isn't that comfortable.

I love that the NEHGS Register is available as a searchable PDF, and I love that the issues are available and searchable online. But I wish that they were available as an ePub file, instead of (or, really, in addition to) a PDF.

PDFs are great, but reading them on a Kindle really is NOT. I like to fall asleep to the soothing well-citationed sounds of Register articles in my mind, but reading PDFs on a Kindle is a navigational and low-functionality nightmare that I'm not interested in ruining my reading experience for. How excellent would it be to have an ePub version of the Register on my Kindle, where I could read and take notes? Pretty darn excellent.

It seems to me that genealogy societies have a vested interest in encouraging members to adopt e-versions of their publications. Saves them lots of money in printing and shipping costs, for one. So why aren't they making it just that much easier for me (and other Kindle users like me) to go digital?

Hey Genealogy Society, want me to adopt the e-version of your publication? Give me an ePub version!!!

Or send me a new iPad.

Totally up to you.

Online Reading on the Kindle

I received a Kindle as a gift in December of last year, and have been using it to read public domain books from Google Books since that time. As a tool for genealogical research (well, background research), the Kindle has been helpful, and I love it because it represents a nexus of my inner bibliophile and Scrooge. For the past year I have been using my Kindle to read a variety of books on early California history, as well as the wagon migration to California across the plains, all for free.

Another Way

One other way to use the Kindle for research purposes which I haven't seen mentioned is Instapaper. At heart, Instapaper is just a simple bookmarking tool, but the benefit of it is that you can export the content of your bookmarks to a Kindle-friendly format, which you can then move to your Kindle.

I have a hard time focusing enough to read long articles online at my computer, so I "instapaper" longer articles to read at my leisure in my prime reading time, which is in bed before I go to sleep. The translation of the web page to the Kindle isn't always perfect, but it is nice to be able to read a web article or blog post--photos, graphs, and all--in my bed, even though I don't have a laptop at the moment!