It's dark, there are strange folk about, it must be Halloween…
(Some random guys I bumped in to outside the office.) I made an effort. I painted my nails black. But before things got dark and creepy, I went to the British Library, where I'd heard they had a display of e-readers to play with. I was a little disappointed, as I'd hoped they'd have different makes – I'm curious about Amazon's Kindle's – but it was just 4 Sony e-readers, of 2 different types, rather annoyingly fixed to perspex blocks so you couldn't pick them up. So I have no idea how much they weigh or how they feel in the hands.
I wasn't impressed at all. To anyone used to the speed, functionality, beautiful design and charm of an ipod touch (or iphone), they seem clunky and inelegant. They're slim, and book sized, the paper is indeed easy to read, but also dull, grey and rather lifeless. Something that would drive me absolutely crazy is the way the screen flashes to black before reassembling itself to white every time you turn a page, or nagivate a menu. And slow, too, maybe quarter of a second's delay while it does this; not much, but enough to disrupt the flow.
The slightly larger model had a touch screen
I can see some advantages – being able to resize the type would help people who have sight-problems. It would be nice to mark excerpts and make notes as you went along. And being able to carry around hundreds of books on one small device is certainly an attractive idea. But the other problem I have found is the limited availability of books in e-book form. Before I went on holiday I looked into downloading titles for the ireader (for ipod touch). The main electronic book sites I found didn't have either of the titles I was hoping to take with me, so I gave up.
It also seems bizarre to me that they're not web-enabled (or are they?). The idea of a device like this that isn't connected to the internet just seems weirdly retrograde. Anyway, there you go. I'm interested, but definitely not on my christmas list.
The British Library, incidentally, has become a very nice place to hang out. It used to feel a lot more institutional, I think, but they seem to have a nice enlightened policy towards letting people use their laptops – the whole place has free wi-fi, and they even provide plugs, which leads to seeing people occuping odd places around the space
There's a great cafe, where you sit under the impressive rare-books collection, housed in a vast glass column in the centre
And lots of interesting things around and about, just there to look at, like T.S.Eliot's typewriter.
The one inescapable downside is it's location, on the resolutely unlovely Euston Road.
Convenient for Kings Cross, but just not an area you'd ever want to linger in. Which is a shame, as inside, the library is quite a nice place to be.
