I love books. I like to hold them in my hands, turn the pages, carry them, read them. My dad has a Kindle and while I understand that it's great for traveling/carrying lots of books at once, the thought of losing the tactile aspect of the book has kept me away from e-readers.
Add that to my tendency to write notes in the margins of my textbooks and underline or highlight passages, and the whole e-book concept seems to have struck out on all counts.
However, it was a real relief the other day to arrive in my Shakespeare class, realize I brought the wrong book, and then realize that it was not a problem because I had the iPad with me!
Geek that I am, I had two options at this point: download the Project Gutenberg version of the play, or use the free Complete Works of Shakespeare app that I downloaded as soon as I got the iPad.
I opted to download the play from project Gutenberg. Both are searchable texts, which is so helpful in a lit-focused class where you want to find particular passages quickly. I was taking notes in my notebook, but if I'd forgotten that too, the Project Gutenberg version would have easily let me take notes on those cute little "digital sticky notes" that stay wherever you put them in the text. The great thing was that I had options--and that I didn't have to abstain from participating in reading aloud because I'd forgotten my book.
I'll still always prefer the real thing, but when push came to shove, the iPad was a pretty good tool to have.
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