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Re: Text Books



Do you actually read long passages on the computer screen (as opposed to
these short and brilliantly written missives from the list)? I find it
difficult to do. You can only comfortably read text if the page has been
magnified, but then you can't see all of the page. You have to scroll back
and forth to see things on a given page and page back and forth to check
previous or future pages. It just isn't very convenient. With the
difficulties most of us find with student reading abilities, I don't think
we want to make it more difficult at this point in time. It is also often
difficult to take your computer with you to all the places you might want to
read the book.

Rick

[Who finds the ON-LINE help, now ubiquitous to all software, more difficult
to use than the 'good old' paper manual!]

**********************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

FREE PHYSICS INSTRUCTIONAL SOFTWARE
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
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----- Original Message -----
From: "David Abineri" <dabineri@CHOICE.NET>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 9:35 AM
Subject: Text Books


On another textbook slant, I wonder when we will stop wasting so much
paper and other resources in books. I would suppose that most text
books are written using a computer these days. Why not just leave it in
computer form on a CD where it can be indexed and searchable? All that
is needed is a dedicated CD player (or computer) in order to read the
book and consider how much weight it would take off our students' backs.
Our science books are particularly heavy so we should be leading the way
in this direction.

At the very least, this should be offered as an option to those
purchasing books.

David Abineri



--
David Abineri
dabineri@choice.net