Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

My grandson taught me about the physical limitations of eBook readers. Those limitations are real. This points me back to the best use of eBook readers – holders of workplace documentation. I wish we would go back to the projection glasses that people tried a couple of decades ago. I guess the market for such isn’t profitable.

I have spent time with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson this past weekend. One thing we did was read my grandson a little book. At the last page of the book, I was told that I was supposed to hug my grandson with the book. The book is made of fabric. The last page is especially soft, fuzzy, and cuddly. When you read that page, you hold it close to my grandson and hug him. My daughter-in-law started this tradition with this book. She is the most wonderful daughter-in-law in the world. With continued blessings, I look for to two more such wonderful additions to my family.

Anyways, I cannot figure out how I could hug my grandson with a Kindle, a laptop computer, or any other eBook reader. They just aren’t soft, fuzzy, and cuddly. As much as I like technology, I have to admit:

There is something to the physical nature of reading

Paper has texture, stiffness, strength, thickness, and many other things that can only be sensed by touch. As with my grandson’s book, there are many other physical materials that comprise books. Each has its own special use and conveys a message of its own. The Kindle for all its advantages, cannot duplicate these physical messages.

This brings me to the one use of eBook readers that I have recommended for the past ten years.

eBook readers are great for workplace documentation

For many years, I traveled the world installing and maintaining systems. Along with the systems themselves came trunks filled with manuals. What a pain, what a chore, what in the world were we doing? Online documentation works in many cases, but there are many more instances where it is not available. The eBook is a great answer.

The Kindle is good, the newer larger Kindle is better for these applications. Both, however, fall short of what we were trying to do 25 years ago. I want to wear a pair of glasses that project the documentation in the space in front of my eyes. That doesn’t require any hands or any special lighting. I merely point my eyes in a specific direction, and there are the words and diagrams I need to do my job.

Maybe one day we will proceed back a few decades and resurrect what I believe to be the best use of eBooks.