Amazon Kindle for historians

[MARTINt]

Hey there,

Does anyone here work with a Kindle for research? I'm considering getting one but can't figure out how the pages go. Are you able to locate the page number of the printed edition through the device, for footnotes or references? Also, can you open ebooks from your library's website on it?

[Sigaba]

3 hours ago, MARTINt said:

Hey there,

Does anyone here work with a Kindle for research? I'm considering getting one but can't figure out how the pages go. Are you able to locate the page number of the printed edition through the device, for footnotes or references? Also, can you open ebooks from your library's website on it?

The answers to your penultimate question will be on a case by case basis; some files provide page numbers that correspond to the printed version of a work, others just give a location.

Amazon has a cloud reader for Kindle at https://read.amazon.com/ . The ability to access it will depend upon each institution's IT policies.

IME, some primary source materials will provide guidance on how to cite an ebook. The Chicago Manual of Style also provides guidance.

[AP]

I use it a lot for research, though in some cases I ended up buying the print book because it's easier for me to take notes. A kindle has been GREAT during fieldwork, when I wanted to read new books but could not access them in paper because they were not available in the country where I was. 

For citing, I include an "e-book" or "kindle version" and I provide the location number (as opposed to a page). 

[MARTINt]

Thank you, Sigaba.

10 hours ago, AP said:

I use it a lot for research, though in some cases I ended up buying the print book because it's easier for me to take notes. A kindle has been GREAT during fieldwork, when I wanted to read new books but could not access them in paper because they were not available in the country where I was. 

For citing, I include an "e-book" or "kindle version" and I provide the location number (as opposed to a page). 

Thanks! What exactly is the location number?

[AP]

10 hours ago, MARTINt said:

Thank you, Sigaba.

Thanks! What exactly is the location number?

In e-books, you don't tend to have page numbers because you can customize font and spacing (although some books do maintain page numbers, it really depends on how the publisher constructed the e-book).

Location numbers work like page numbers in the sense that they locate you in the book. According to this website, a location number stands for 125 characters (I though it was a paragraph number). That means that in your citation, instead of writing "p. 23" you would write "loc. 115". If people wanted to check that citation in the book, they would have to go to that location.