I have been having a number of adventures in ereading. I’ve held a long curiosity for web books and found myself thinking about how such might be employed when considering narrative ideas. I read a fair bit online, usually factual, anthropology, political, or some writers I’ve read exclusively online because their work can be hard to obtain or because my appetite for it will not wait until I can find a hard copy. And webcomics I’ve often enjoyed.

The reading is normally in intense bursts of middling duration. Rarely have I attempted to digest an entire 300 page text. Last night I did just that and the experience was a middling one. The book concerned contained images and I skipped rapidly through them. The text wasn’t too bad on the eyes, it was friendly enough (the content is another story), but I read it at a galloping pace which satisfied me. How and ever, I was disappointed by how little the images did for me that I declared it over to the ceiling for me and digitized images in books.

Today I tried the BC online books initiative through the Vancouver Public Library (available here if you hold a VPL library card http://www.vpl.ca/electronic_databases/cat/C88

I examined several titles. Initially the BC online books beta reader gave me trouble, I could not understand how to turn the pages with any ease and efficiency, however once I established an account and downloaded the library ereader plugin, matters improved. The reader interface is fairly basic, but critically the quality of the print improved & the images were decent in comparison to yesterday’s experience during which I was ready to write off all images via ebooks.

The volume of information and access to 650 titles blows my head off my shoulders and around the room. However it returns to land when I consider that it is so uncomfortable for me to experience books on a laptop I might only manage a few chapters ….

I am now dead curious to try an ereading handheld device and see how it compares.

It concerns me, the strain on the eyes. My vision is now at the point where I can’t read information on jars and medicines. I have to put my glasses on. It’s certainly diminished compared to what it was. It was always good enough to get away without glasses despite being given them.

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It’s a long time since I ran on pavement or grass. Yesterday time did not permit to do anything else and I was desperate for some exercise. God it is so difficult and hard on the joints, I’d forgotten. Also, how one experiences the damp whiff off fungus, trees and so on. I could not understand why it was so much more uncomfortable to run on what are normal everyday circumstances compared to the much more unnatural heave of an airborne ski shifting machine …. It was also cold. I ran in a thermal shirt with 2 further layers, despite two laps of a significant sized track (6 city blocks at least) I did not warm up!  But it was a great observational experience.

After the run, there were birthday’s to attend to and we had a visit from our favourite babog who has a sense of humour I’ve rarely encountered previously in a seven-month-old. He adores my son and lets this be constantly known by turning his head, seeking him out and letting out constant laughter at the sight or sound of him.  It’s currently one of my favourite soundtracks — the dotey dote that he is.

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I am receiving constant and diverse weather reports. Shocking weather events taking place across the pond. The water was turned off in Dublin and other places from 7pm -7am to deal with shortages. My poor mam has no water at all. (only her well water requiring an icy trek ) She said it was so cold that the gas inside the cylinder, inside the house froze! She’s still chirpy in spite of it.

BC Books Online

Ha! This looks very promising. A new initiative between our public libraries, publishers and schools called  BC Books Online. Read more about it here

BC Books Online is collaboration between publishers and libraries to purchase electronic rights to a collection of non-fiction books by BC publishers and to make them accessible through public, school, and post-secondary libraries.  It is the first time ever that publishers and libraries have come together with the objective to deliver digital content to an entire province.

Now my main question is can we see a list of the proposed titles? I am v curious to see what is included. It appears to be only non-fiction. Could a similar proposal be made to acquire digital rights to some of the buried fiction and novels that are out of print and where there are no longer circulating library copies.