john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

e-books

  • E-book review: "Life on Earth", the future of textbooks?

    Tue, 2012-03-20 10:38 -- John Hawks

    "Download the Universe" is a new collaboration of 16 leading science communicators and scientists who are dedicated to understanding and furthering the art of science e-books and apps. The scene for science writing has fundamentally changed during the last year. Interactive books, self-published e-books, short "Kindle Singles", and new outlets for long-form science journalism have given us many new ways to bring science to a broader public. Traditional review outlets have fallen behind. The best sellers on Amazon often haven't seen any kind of mainstream review. That's why we're stepping up to highlight this growing mode of science communication.

    In my first review for "Download the Universe", I've taken a close look at the first of a new breed of biology textbooks: "'Life on Earth': the future of textbooks?"

    Some would argue that educational "innovation" is too often just window-dressing -- shopworn ideas in new, flashy clothing. Personally I tend to agree. It may be great to be able to bring knowledge to students for free, in the open. Saving school districts money may not be an unalloyed good, but it ain't evil. Still, openness isn't enough. The materials also have to be effective. When I opened "Life on Earth", I was skeptical...

    My view of the book is mixed -- some elements are truly magical. The animations and video present the opportunity to engage learners who aren't well-served by text-only materials. But it's still a work in progress, and it's not clear how to integrate these different elements in the most effective way. The text itself is the core of any book, and it needs to be stronger.

    Tags: 
    textbooks
    e-books
    books
    Download the Universe
    education

  • Download the universe

    Tue, 2012-02-21 10:38 -- John Hawks

    Carl Zimmer and a broad group of science writers and scientists have started a new collaborative review site, focused specifically on science e-books and apps: "Download the Universe".

    Ebooks are once again redrawing the boundaries. Walk into a book store and look at the science section. Most of the books are between about 200 and 400 pages. Most are created by large publishing houses. There's nothing fundamentally wrong about a 50-page book, of course. It just doesn't fit comfortably into the publishing business--a business that has to contend with costs for printing books, storing them in warehouses, shipping them to book stores, and accepting returned books. Ebooks create an economic space for the very short book (and the very long one). They also allow authors to reach readers without having to persuade a publisher that their book will earn back an investment.

    I will be contributing reviews to the site, with the first one coming up sometime in the next couple of weeks. I am so excited to be exploring the growing potential of e-books, apps and other innovative ways of communicating science.

    You can of course see part of my diversified efforts here on the blog, where I now have a mix of stories, streaming lectures, labs, and open science. I have a few other projects in the works that will open up more new ways of communicating human evolution research, and I'll be using e-book formats extensively. It's a great time to be a scientist!

    Tags: 
    e-books
    science writing
    science communication
    books

  • An e-book library

    Fri, 2011-11-04 08:09 -- John Hawks

    Libraries have gone into e-book lending in a big way recently, and now Amazon is getting into the act with its Amazon Lending Library. I've been watching e-books pretty closely, and this seems like an interesting development: get a Kindle and Amazon Prime, and borrow a book at a time for free -- sort of like Netflix for books.

    There are limits on which books. The Wall Street Journal points out (subscription) that none of the six largest publishers are participating. I'd be interested to know what kind of consideration Amazon gives to publishers for allowing their e-books to be lent, and what impact it has on the rankings of those books in the Amazon store.

    Tags: 
    e-books
    publishing
    Amazon

  • Are apps the evil twins of e-books?

    Thu, 2011-09-01 23:31 -- John Hawks

    I really like e-books quite a lot. It's easy to take a device like the Kindle, load up books, and read them. It holds your place for you, and multiple devices can be synchronized so that you can pick up a different one and read from the same page you left. One of the things I like most is that the electronic files themselves are a very simple format. When devices change, these files are still going to work. They aren't very different from the basic HTML that your browser can read, and in fact converting from web authoring to e-book authoring is very natural.

    But there's a limit to what you can do with a very simple format. You can't present multimedia or interactive content without adding some complexity. Many people have started to incorporate book-like material with interactive content by packaging them as apps instead of e-books. The best-known example of this is an app called The Elements, half coffee-table book about the periodic table, half whiz-bang visualization of 3d objects.

    John Dupuis is a librarian who has been thinking a lot about the impermanence of apps: "On the evilness of the emerging ebook app ecosystem".

    In the longer term, it's not clear how apps such as The Elements could follow their owners to new platforms or new devices. Certainly the content for something like The Elements could have a very long lifetime, say even fifteen or twenty years. If you bought it today what do you think the likelihood is you'll be able to access it in that time frame. It's like if book publishers could make you use their proprietary glasses to read their books.

    I'm not sure how I feel about the issue but it's worth thinking about. Apps can be done for free, but if they need to be constantly updated they will introduce costs that tend to make them costly relative to e-books. Some app-like content can be done in a cross-platform way, for example with Flash or HTML5. I've worked to some extent with Wolfram's system for sharing interactive content, which they're trying to make more widespread. Hopefully a more open, e-book-like system for sharing interactive and media content on readers will emerge.

    Tags: 
    media
    open access
    e-books
    Synopsis: 
    Apps allow interactive content, but lock readers into a platform that may disappear.
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Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.