Super Researcher Girl!

Shazam! It is official. I now have super-powers beyond those of the average mortal. Harnessing the powers of Diigo, I can take notes on web pages (!) and collaborate and share with anyone in my research process.

I was playing around with Google Books (very cool) and found this article giving an overview of their platform. This is an area of interest for me, so using Diigo I have started a research project on e-books. You can see the link, the description I gave it, and then the tags I assigned the article. Below that you will find paragraphs I highlighted, and bulleted notes (brief) with my name. Go ahead and scan. I'll see you on the other end. You will recognize it is me again by the orange font ;)

• Inside Google Books: Download Over a Million Public Domain Books from Google Books in the Open EPUB Format

  (My short description of the article) Resources on public domain e-books.

  (My tags)tags: ebooks, epub, Free, books, digital books, Google Books

  • Before physical books were invented, thoughts were constrained by both space and time. It was difficult for humans to share their thoughts and feelings with a set of people too far from their physical location. Printed books changed that by allowing authors to record their experiences in a medium that could be shipped around the world. Similarly, the words written down could be preserved through time. The result was an explosion in collaboration and creativity. Via printed books, a 17th century physicist in Great Britain could build on the work of a 16th century Italian scholar.
    • The first step in global collaboration - post by rcicchetti
  • it can be difficult and costly to reproduce and transport the information that older physical books contain. Some can't afford these works. Others who might be able to afford to purchase them can't unless they can find a physical copy available for sale or loan. Some important books are so limited in quantity that one must fly around the world to find a copy. Access to other works is only available to those who attend certain universities or belong to certain organizations.
    • Barriers to access - post by rcicchetti
  • convert atoms from physical books into digital bits
    • New format - evolution. Same content. - post by rcicchetti
  • While atoms remain fairly expensive, digital bits are on a trend where they become ever cheaper to produce, transport, and store. For example, providing every student in a school district with a paper copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet might cost thousands of dollars. Yet if those same students already have cell phones, laptops, or access to the Internet, then they can access a digital copy of Hamlet for just a fraction of the cost.
    • Barriers to access - economics. The devices are expensive, though. For the poor, is a book still the most cost effective way to go? If books disappear will the poor be without free access to information? Digital bits are cheaper than atoms, but the cost of the device and access must also be figured in. - post by rcicchetti

Thanks for sticking with me so far! What I want you to notice is that my "rcicchetti" link is live and can take you to my Diigo page. I can invite others to participate in reading this article and taking notes along with me, collaborating as we go. This is an online discussion platform. There are lots of privacy feature, but I haven't set them up on my account, because I want it to be as open as possible at this point.

Cooler yet, I exported the whole thing to this blog with the click of the keypad! Versatile, powerful, collaborative - I haven't found the kryptonite for Diigo yet.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Photo credit Flickr Creative Commons:

Shazam! - Series 1 ( DC Direct )

Uploaded on April 19, 2009
by Leandro [ Egon ]