A Book
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
May 25, 2012
ΤΩ ΚΡΟΝΟΥ ΚΑΙΡΩ
In the Nick of Time
Electronic Books
Kevin T. Bauder
Changes in technology also bring other kinds of changes. Technologies
shape the way that people envision reality. They help to form or dismantle
social relationships. They either reinforce or erode cultures.
Much of what conservatives—including me—say and write about technology focuses on its unintended consequences, many of which are negative.
We feel an obligation to point out how our new toys often serve to diminish
our humanity. The naïve deployment of new technologies heedless of their
unintended consequences can produce disastrous results.
No one can deny, however, that technologies also bring benefits—sometimes spectacular benefits. Occasionally, even we conservatives feel inclined
to point out the benefits of a technological advance when it really is an
advance. The recognition of these benefits and the willingness to enjoy them
is one of the factors that distinguish conservatives from mere Luddites.
Electronic books are such an advance. Because print books are physical objects, they are both bulky and spatially fixed. Not only do they take up room
on a shelf, but they can occupy only one shelf (or desk, or hand) at a time.
These are just the limitations that make electronic books better by whole
orders of magnitude.
Naturally, ebooks have their disadvantages, too. Probably the principal
difficulty with electronic texts is that they have to be read from a screen. In
the old days of 640x480 monochrome monitors, that could lead to a bit of
eyestrain. Visual interfaces have improved so dramatically, however, that
reading from a screen is almost always as easy as reading from a printed
page. Sometimes it is even easier. With the right device, we can read our
ebooks in the dark. Personally, I have never found reading from a screen
to be terribly difficult. For the past decade or so I have probably done more
reading on computers than I have from the printed page.
In the Nick of Time is published by Central Baptist Theological Seminary.
Permission is granted to duplicate for personal and church use.
www.centralseminary.edu | [email protected]
900 Forestview Lane N, Plymouth, MN 55441 | 800.827.1043
Electronic books offer a huge advantage in compactness and portability.
Even a smart phone has enough capacity to store dozens of books. A laptop computer or a portable hard drive can store thousands. Since WiFi has
become readily available, the “cloud” can make entire electronic libraries
available to multiple devices. For pastors and seminarians, two of these
libraries really stand out.
ducing photographic-quality PDF scans of books. Many of these books are
in the public domain and are available online to researchers.
Most theological students are acquainted with the Logos program. While
it is less useful for technical exegesis than the Bibleworks package (I have
both), it has always offered significant advantages as a digital library. The
introduction of apps for iOS and Android have made it by far the most useful tool that a pastor or seminarian could own. Users have access to their
entire libraries, not only on their desktop and laptop computers, but also on
their tablets and even their smart phones.
Generally speaking, books in the public domain are those that were published before 1923. Consequently, one cannot download the latest and
greatest resources from these sites. For projects that require older sources,
however, these collections are a dream come true.
When I was in seminary, the question was whether a student should buy
his own typewriter, and one of my professors used to say, “If you haven’t
bought a typewriter, you just haven’t prayed about it.” Today, I think that
the same could be said about Logos. Wherever possible I am moving my library away from hard copies and toward Logos. A book on my shelf in Minneapolis does me no good when I am in Toronto, but my Android phone
can access any volume in my Logos library from anywhere in the world.
The other library that has become exceptionally useful is Amazon’s Kindle.
I avoided Kindle for years because I didn’t like the feel of Amazon’s little
reading devices. Truthfully, I still don’t—and I am still bothered by the fact
that Amazon does not provide a slot for an SD chip. As if to compensate
for these small liabilities, however, Kindle software is available for free.
The Kindle platform can be supported on virtually any notebook, tablet, or
smart phone. Amazon stores each user’s Kindle library in the cloud (though
volumes can also be downloaded to the individual physical device). Amazon even provides a way to convert other texts into Kindle files.
The cost per volume for both Kindle and Logos books is significantly less
than the cost of print books. In many instances (especially with Kindle)
some resources are available for free (Logos has fewer free offerings, but
when it restores full functionality to its Personal Book Builder, users can
again distribute their own Logos-compatible materials). Both Logos and
Kindle also offer sale prices on a regular basis. Low cost. Small footprint.
Magnificent portability. Why would a pastor or student not want to run this
software?
The only disadvantage to both Logos and Kindle is that they are not quite
reliable enough to cite in formal papers. With Kindle, the problem is pagination: how does one cite a page number from a flowing text stream? With
Logos, the problem lies in the occasional typographical error (though these
are becoming less frequent). I still tell my students to look up every reference in print before they cite a source for a paper.
That is just where two internet libraries come into the picture. Both Google
Books and the lesser-known Internet Archive Library have spent years pro-
For example, I recently had to do a good bit of reading on the subject of
Baptist distinctives and polity. Between Google Books and Internet Archive,
I discovered dozens of relevant volumes and downloaded them to my own
hard drive. As recently as a decade ago, accessing all of these books would
have meant negotiating inter-library loans or even traveling to libraries
across the country. Now a few clicks of a mouse and the books are mine.
The same has proven true for a current project on the development of
American liberal theology. Once again, dozens of books were at my fingertips. Sometimes a bit of creativity was necessary in manipulating the search
engines, but (as in any research) one source led to another until I had more
at my disposal than a researcher could have gathered in a year’s labor when
I was in seminary. Because these sources are photographic quality, they can
be cited just as if they were the original print works.
The only problem is that I now have more to read than I can begin to work
my way through. The advantage is that the reading is with me all the time.
I have the three volumes of Rolland McCune’s Systematic Theology in my
pocket right now, thanks to Logos. While I’ve read a draft of one volume
and parts of the others, I’ve never worked my way through all three books
from start to finish. That comes next on my reading agenda. And I can do
my reading at home, from the study, in the car, or under a shade tree, all
thanks to the power of electronic books., in the car, or under a shade tree, all
thanks to the power of electronic books.
X
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology
at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors,
students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every
opinion that it expresses.