Shared by the Library Journal ”

 An article on the subject “Most college students prefer to read print books for pleasure, but when they are conducting research, almost two thirds now prefer ebooks or express no format preference, according to Library Journal’s 2018 Academic Student Ebook Experience Survey, sponsored by EBSCO.”

My commentary:

Since being a writer is like being an alllllll your life college student (not to mention the years I actually did put in which are more than half of my adult life)….

I love love love my research by books. I can highlight, underline, mark, note all throughout it. My ability to trade or sell books isn’t very good. Thankfully I typically keep them anyway and reference them often. My novels alone looks like research text.

I did get a Nook upon the shift to RV living and traveling. This was to cut down on the many many many space taking texts that I had. It hasn’t totally worked as far as books go but what I have done is move all of my magazines to the Nook which actually does save about a good 4 feet by 4 feet wide and 2 feet high of space nearly every month alone. I kid. You. Not.

I type most of my notes from these on the laptop as well but many notes are handwritten so my notebooks still take up a lot of space and there isn’t a fat chance in hell I toss those out. Though in my life I’ve lost no less than thousands of them by various means.

My note taking from books is also on the computer as well as notebook. I can’t seem to tame that part of things. Learning how to properly be able to go back for easy reference finding is still a system I am working on establishing. And often need.

The books that I have moved onto the Nook have become, so far, those that I add to my collection and reading that are not already established on my planned reading list. This exists. And continues to grow. Dear lord. As well as an occasional that Joe and I read and basically “couple bookclub” together since we’ve hooked our nooks together to do so from afar. I often walk out of the bookstore carrying an armload and nothing under $80 worth (typically even on sale and with membership or at half the price) stating to Joe “These were all on my list” to which he chuckles and only responds “uh huh”. He figures his partner could have worse habits.

Not to say that books DO end up in my home that were not on my list. Especially as my favorite (one of) thing to do while traveling is stop along at local bookstores and see what they have in local authors. If it looks interesting I often collect it up. I even attend readings of them when I can. Along with dozens of others. And college lectures take a lot of my time. They are seriously a hobby. If I applied to a job and filled in “hobbies” “Attending bookstore/author readings and college lectures, especially of authors” would be a thing. Even out of college I still spend more time in than not. (I also often audit classes as I go.)

And then there are attended book festivals (another traveling hobby) and literary events of the like and coming across about 100 authors and a lot of book stands is a sure way of me ending up with many books that perhaps may not have been actually on my list.

And this isn’t to say the hundreds of articles in just a week, literary magazines, etc (not including news at all) that I read online that perhaps I can’t get on my Nook. Or just extra from it. Or keeping up with a few industry pieces. Or downloads I may have.

Oh, and I don’t forget the local libraries. As a traveler without the ability to get the library card in locations I go to, I can’t do that, but I often read AT the library (especially old newspapers and particular texts some may carry which vary depending on my current work needs and location I may be on researching the area…such as Mobile Alabama and my grandmother as one example, or of MLK in local newspapers in various area’s and the time he was in them, or of the Houston Women’s Convention of 1977 news media time when I was in Houston, as another to really know what was being said in the media then, as well as media research on how journalism has changed and a few projects like that). When I do this I ALWAYS support financially and at least donating a dollar an hour I spend at one. Sometimes more depending. And if they have a book sale section I always end up with something that I “just truly needed”…you know…those books that call to you. Or just a great Sunday afternoon read.

But I will always, especially in text research type books, prefer a hard copy.