I was excited to see the progress that Amazon is making on their Kindle line with the reveal of Kindle DX yesterday. They are going beyond a vision for a simple little e-reader. The larger-sized reader offers an interesting angle on entering the academic market. Amazon is partnering with universities (Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, University of Virginia, Reed College and Pace) and textbook companies (Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley) to get the Kindle DX into the hands of students in the upcoming academic year.
One of the greatest advances, in my mind, of the new Kindle is the ability to view PDFs without some clunky conversion process. At Fuller Seminary, a good percentage of my courses had a course reader on CDs, filled with PDF versions of our reading. At UCLA, my courses have had countless huge reading assingments in PDF scanned from relevant scholarship. The PDF feature makes Kindle particularly juicey for graduate students. While the current pricetag ($489) may make the device a tough sell for strapped college students, this is only their first footstep into the market. This is the third Kindle available since November 2007. I am sure they will continue to work out the kinks of doing this business and the price will come down.
But I have a dream. Oh, my friends, do I have a dream! Kindle’s vision is to have “every book ever printed in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.” Currently, their offerings for biblical studies are pretty sparse. You can get copies of the TNIV and ESV (both free!), some introductory textbooks, a specialized work here and there, and even one Bible Atlas (which would be a must for me). This is a decent start, but if I’m going to buy a Kindle to meet academic needs, I need more. If Amazon is going to reach its goal, it seems wise that they partner with folks that are already successfully developing electronic libraries.
Enter Pat’s dream: the ability to convert and transfer my resources on Logos Bible Software to the Amazon Kindle, something like this most recent edition. On the Kindle, they already have the ability to highlight a word and jump to it in the built-in dictionary. Apparently, you can purchase other dictionaries to be set as your default. Imagine having the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary fill that role while reading biblical texts. Imagine something like Logos’ keylinking, where you can click on a reference (canonical or otherwise) and jump right to that text. You would certainly have to give up real powerful search features, but having my Logos library available on the sort of Kindle released yesterday, that would be heavenly.
So, Amazon.com, meet Logos Bible Software. You two go get acquainted and let’s see what happens 
Eh. While I think eReaders have a lot of potential, the Kindle just doesn’t appeal to me, for several reasons:
- Where is the touchscreen capability? From what I understand, you have to scroll through links using mechanical buttons on the side of the machine.
- While I think e-paper is cool, I can’t get very excited about reading gray-on-gray text.
- The design has gotten better since Kindle 1.0, but it’s still an ugly box of a thing. Did Amazon time-travel back to 1992 to recruit their design team?
- I agree that the built-in PDF capability would be a boon to students. But how useful are course readings that you can’t mark up? Maybe the Kindle allows users to take notes or highlight text (I’m not sure), but it has to be incredibly cumbersome, given the device’s clunky interface.
I wonder if Amazon may be anticipating Apple’s Next Big Thing™ with their Kindle DX. Rumors have been swirling about a media tablet–basically an iPhone or iPod Touch scaled up. Now *that’s* something that could prove useful for doing biblical studies on the fly. Maybe it would let you run your desktop apps from afar, so you could actually use Logos (or Bibleworks, or Accordance) itself on the fly.
How about this: you’re in class, and you’ve got your Nestle-Aland open on your iPad. Tap a Greek word and (*boom*) BAGD’s entry on its lexical form pops up. No flipping pages, and no laptop screen dividing you from your classmates or instructor. Sweet gravy.
Oh, Matt. You communist. How dare you question the gospel of unfettered capitalism?
Seriously, Amazon is a giant. Giants have the power to make huge cultural shifts if it is in their interest. Not that I really know anything about this stuff, but Amazon has the potential for moving things forward significantly, like you say.
Not that I think my idea is likely, but I think Amazon partnering with a company that is a leader in pushing a digital library for Christian literature is more likely than for-profit companies opening up their arms and joyously embracing each other in their common pursuit towards the freedom of information
Fortunately, even if Logos closes its doors in 2022, you’ll likely be able to continue using the software indefinitely. Virtualization will ensure that you have a computing environment that will run that ol’ Logos software you bought.
But you’ll also be locked into the software as it stood when Logos “went down in ashes.” No more improvements, no new features. But if your digital resources were unlocked, you could simply plug them into Logos’ successor and go right on doing your Bible thang.
A great post which led me to reflect on technology and a biblical deam of mine
http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/2009/05/kindle-and-canon.html
Love the debate. Quick question for you though…
As a new seminary student this upcomming fall, and a wide-eyed onlooker to the kindle, would it behoove me to purchase such a pricey device?, I see schools like Rockbridge are jumping on board with it. I already have to invest in a laptop, but I love the e-reader idea of having many books at your fingertips… Thoughts please
I too dream about brining ‘books’ from Logos Bible Software over to a kindle reader (which would be how I found this blog). I truly do not like reading from a computer monitor and would very much like to read electronic resources while having the ‘book like’ interface provided by the kindle.
My massive Logos library is great for research, but reading large amounts of text such as a ‘book’ is an unfortunate and foreign experience to the Logos Bible Software interface. Desired features such as book marking, page turning, and non straining reading are not existent. Further, holding the ‘book’ in your hand and having portability (bed/couch/airplane/walking/waiting room/etc…) is something you cannot fully achieve from the laptop!
I’d love to see an interface which would allow us to easily export text into reading devices iPhone, Kindle, etc… I think possibly each ‘book’ or file could have a timer set to corrupt the file after some amount of time. This would stop the text from unwarranted distribution to those who are not rightful owners, but would allow the rightful owner to bring the book into a more comfortable and appropriate reading environment.
Here is to kindle reading our Logos Bible Software resources!
In Him for the Gospel,
John
Actually there is a way to mark up the text, take notes at certain points, and bookmark pages. But yeah, it’s probably clunky.
Don’t get me wrong. I definitely think your ‘dream’ is right-on. Something like an Amazon Kindle will eventually prove invaluable for biblical scholars. Bible nerds are constantly flipping back and forth between resources, and having all those books available at the flick of your finger is a no-brainer.
And, to be fair, this sort of device is pretty young, and I’m grateful that Amazon is helping to push it into the mainstream. Sleekness and more practical UIs are sure to come, especially if the device proves popular. The eReader idea is too good an idea NOT to spawn better designs down the road. Look at the early iPods, with their mechanical scroll wheels and ultra-thick bodies. It’s hard to believe how quickly they evolved into the shiny, uber-useful devices they are now. eReaders will likely go through the same refining process, and my complaints will no longer apply.
So… here’s a less nitpicky concern: the Kindle’s DRM. All of Amazon’s resources are locked down, such that you can’t really get at them outside of the Kindle walled garden. What happens when Amazon discontinues the Kindle line in 2016? You’re spent $50 on Waltke-O’Connor, and $50 on Bauer-Danker–and suddenly you can’t access those resources any more. We need some sort of open format for eBooks–something that you can use on Logos, on Bibleworks, on your iPod, and, yes, on your Kindle. All these locked-down, proprietary formats make good business sense for Amazon and Logos. But they force the consumers to pay for the same resource over and over and over again.
Well, that’s the thing. I really don’t think it’s in their interest to leave things locked-down. It doesn’t really prevent piracy; all it does is frustrate customers.
Look at the digital music revolution (I sound like such a tool when I use that term) for an example. Everything was DRMed at the start; you’d buy it from walmart.com or iTunes, and there would be copy protection embedded in the file. Then, predictably, some of the music stores started to close. Yahoo Music (for example) shut down its authentication servers, and suddenly consumers had NO way to transfer their music to a new computer. They lost the license to music that they had legitimately bought.
Customers complained, resisted, and (of course) pursued DRM-free music through illegal means. Eventually, the digital music distributors (including Amazon!) woke up and switched over to legitimate, DRM-free offerings. Just last month, Apple finally converted their entire iTunes music store to non-locked-down offerings.
Now we seem destined to endure the same torturous experience with digital video and digital books. It’s as if the whole DRMed music fiasco never happened. As if Amazon never learned that consumers HATE locked-down content. If I buy a digital resource, I want to OWN that resource. I should be able to view it on my laptop, my iPod, my Kindle, my GPS, my TV, and my toaster. If I want to, let me print it out at the library. If they can’t provide users with basic ownership rights, then they shouldn’t be surprised when users pursue other avenues for acquiring the content.
Well said. You make a good point. I don’t really care too much about it, though I would care if Logos went down in ashes and I couldn’t use the thousands of dollars of resources I have purchased. Basically, I feel like I’m for whatever might allow me to use my Logos resources on something like the Kindle (or whatever the future of the Kindle looks like).
Not that I know anything, but I would say no, stick to your laptop. At this point, it doesn’t look like any e-reader is really going to be good for research. The price is going to come down and the device will get better over time.
One more thing… I would take that money and put it into Bible software!