Going All-in With eBooks
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Sort of. My selling off my library of physical books came 30 years ago. It was a bit different from Challies as I didn’t resort to ebooks because non existed. My reading devolved into visiting collections libraries and of course, my bible.
The shift was occasioned by figuring out what God’s plan for me consisted. God had a gracious plan for me but not in professional ministry. I used Intercristo and other helps to try to determine my interests, gifts, and abilities. Prayer and seeking His guidance of course was central. I sold my reference books which were extensive, and what I could not sell. I donated to Pillsbury College (nearly 1200 volumes, of which half were devotional paperbacks). During my school days two brothers went into the reprinting business and I probably significantly supported them by my purchases. I worked full time mostly and took 6+ years to finish seminary so many years were spent book collecting.
Challies has a small house, I moved across an ocean. 20 years ago I restarted building by library much more selectively not least because of finances. My eyes got worse and couldn’t read the small print in many books. This caused me to find the largest and highest resolution of screen which several have proved very serviceable. The new horseless carriages have mostly enabled greater travels (so to speak).
"Our faith itself... is not our saviour. We have but one Saviour; and that one Saviour is Jesus Christ our Lord. B.B. Warfield
I usually just go for what’s cheaper. That usually isn’t Logos, so I rarely buy anything from them. It’s usually Kindle, although I’ll buy paper if it’s cheaper. I recently bought the first volume of Darrell Bock’s commentary on Luke (BEGNT) in hardback because it was $9.00 cheaper in that format.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
That usually isn’t Logos, so I rarely buy anything from them.
The advantage to Logos is the search/study capability. I rarely use hardbound commentaries anymore unless it is something I don’t have in Logos. Plus Logos is always with me wherever I am. It’s worth the extra cost, IMO. Within a matter of a few seconds, I can have all my commentaries on a given passage lined up and ready to be used.
Reading, however, is a different story. IMO, Logos is hte most unwieldy reading format. Kindle is better. But I like hardcopy the best for straight reading.
Larry wrote:
Plus Logos is always with me wherever I am.
I deliberately don’t have a smartphone or a tablet. I makes me sad to see so many people walking, driving or waiting through life with a phone in their hands. I reminds me of the humans on the cruise ship from WALL*E!
Phones and tablets suck my life away, and I find myself turning into a mindless information junkie if I have them. I have a “normal” cell phone without any internet capability whatsoever, and all I have for an e-reader is a Kindle Paperwhite. So, for me, Logos doesn’t go with me anywhere, unless I have my laptop.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I don’t have it on my phone. I have it my tablet but the tablet app is pretty unusable, IMO. By “everywhere” I mean wherever my laptop is. I don’t have to carry books home from the office, or back to the office, or on a road trip, or anywhere else.
We recently moved and the Uhual truck leaked so that many of my books were damaged. My library is split between electronic and hard copy but that ordeal has me thinking electronic may be better.
I too love Logos but find it expensive. I also really dislike the fact that in order to get many of the resources it is necessary to buy a package. Since many of the resources in the package are not that great, from my perspective, I end up sorting through a lot I would not look at otherwise.
Kindle is good, particularly if you can tolerate “Voice Over.” One can get through a lot of books in their car this way. Like Tyler, I usually buy books where they are cheaper, unless it is a great reference and would serve me better on Logos where it can be searched. Kindle also sometimes gives you the option to but the Whispersync for only a few dollars more. That is a huge benefit to me.
The one thing I’ve got against ebooks—keep in mind here that most of my career has been in data storage—is that trusting electronics to hold things for a long time is something I just can’t quite persuade myself to do. I’ve seen too many shortcuts taken in data reliability, to put it mildly. My family owns a tablet and we use it a lot, but there is a certain point where I want something on my bookshelf that serves as a reference point to what was said when the book was printed. Not for every book, but certainly for a lot of them.
And yes, I know there are a lot of ways you can destroy a physical book, too, but I’ve got a couple of volumes that are about 290 years old. I know for a fact that my hard drive and flash memory won’t be working after two centuries.
One side note; there was a meeting this weekend at 4th for a new competitor to Logos, I believe. I’d love to see it if Jim or others at 4th would let us know about it. (my kids were there for Deo Cantamus and I chatted with Matt)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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