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Media for reading research papers

“Would you like to be able to read research papers on a support like Kindle?”, asks Thomas Lemberger, at FriendFeed via Twitter.
Here's a selection of the answers he received:
Yes, if it had a larger screen and the PDF formating was OK. Reading research papers and reference books would be the main reason I would consider buying an e-reader - Pedro Beltrao
As near as I can determine, the stumbling block is the volume of tables and similar graphics in journal articles. But short forms (such as articles, periodical materials, etc) are ideal for e-readers- Jill O'Neill
Both Kindle and Sony E-Reader are a bit too small for PDFs formatted for approx A4 page in my experience - Cameron Neylon
If you are worried about rendering and screen size, Papers for iPhone is really quite acceptable - Daniel Swan
Reading a paper with Papers for iPhone works mainly for looking up specific information, rather than reading the full paper - Martin Fenner [See here for earlier posts about Papers by Martin, at Nature Network.]
Papers for iPhone is great, though you still wouldn't want to read an entire thesis on it - Chris Cotsapas.

Do you read articles on e-readers or mobile devices? What is your experience? Let us know, either here or at Friend Feed.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 19, 2009
Categories: Format | | Comments (0)

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