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