Category Archives: eBooks

Transferring e-books from EBSCO to your mobile device or e-reader

Posted on by

In my previous post, I described the procedure for downloading EBSCOhost e-books to your computer for offline reading. In this post I will describe how you can transfer a downloaded book to a mobile device–a smartphone, tablet computer, or dedicated e-book reader.

Before proceeding, make sure that you have successfully completed all the steps described in my previous post and listed here:

  1. You have created an Adobe ID
  2. You have downloaded and installed the Adobe Digital Editions application software on your computer
  3. You have created a My EBSCOhost account, and
  4. You have downloaded an EBSCOhost e-book into Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions negotiates copy protection for EBSCOhost e-books on your computer or your mobile device. In order to successfully transfer an EBSCOhost e-book to a mobile device that device must either natively communicate with Adobe Digital Editions when attached to your computer, or allow the installation of an application that can communicate with Adobe Digital Editions on its behalf. Dedicated e-book readers such as the Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, or Kobo eReader support Adobe Digital Editions natively. Unfortunately, Amazon E-Ink Kindles do not currently provide support for Adobe Digital Editions. Many smartphones and tablets, including Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad) and Android devices (including Amazon Kindle Fire tablets with some special tweaking), work with Adobe Digital Editions through a third-party application that can be installed on the device. I will describe the transfer procedure on a Barnes & Noble Nook and an Apple iPod touch. The specific procedure for your device may differ from these, but the following instructions will give you a good idea for what is involved. Please contact a librarian if you would like assistance, or if you run into any difficulty.

Transferring an EBSCOhost e-book to a Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch e-reader

Step 1: Authorize the device in Adobe Digital Editions

Launch Adobe Digital Editions on your computer then attach your e-reader device to your computer with the supplied USB cable. Adobe Digital Editions should automatically detect a compatible e-reader. You will be prompted to authorize the use of the device with Adobe Digital Editions (which may include entering your Adobe ID). In this screenshot notice “NOOK” is detected under Devices in the left column:

Step 2: Drag an e-book to your device

To install an e-book to the device simply select the desired title from the Bookshelf in the right column and drag it onto the device icon as shown here:

Step 3: Open and read the book on your device

Adobe Digital Editions will notify you when the e-book installation is complete. Eject the device from your computer. Browse and launch the e-book from the device’s book Library. Start reading!

Step 4: Remove an expired e-book from your device

As with EBSCOhost e-books originally downloaded to your computer, when the checkout period expires you will no longer be able to open the book on your device. At this point, you may choose to delete the expired file from your device’s book Library. Re-attach the device to your computer, launch Adobe Digital Editions, highlight “NOOK” under Devices in the left column, select the expired title from the Bookshelf in the right column, Control-Click the book icon and select “Remove from Library” from the drop down menu.

Transferring an EBSCOhost e-book to an Apple iOS or Google Android device

Unlike the previous procedure where a compatible dedicated e-reader (like the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch) is immediately recognizable by Adobe Digital Editions when connected to your computer, transferring EBSCOhost e-books to a smartphone or tablet requires a separate application capable of communicating with Adobe Digital Editions and serving as a book reader. You also need a transfer method that the reader application can understand.

As with downloading EBSCOhost e-books to your computer, the procedure for preparing your mobile device for transferring e-books is a bit complicated. However, you shouldn’t have too much trouble if you follow these instructions closely. The first three steps only have to be done one time. Feel free to contact a librarian if you would like assistance, or if you run into any difficulty. (Note: Amazon’s Kindle Fire is an Android-based tablet. However, installation of applications on this device is a bit more complicated than most. Special instructions are at the bottom.)

Step 1: Create a Dropbox account

You need a fairly easy and straightforward way to transfer a downloaded EBSCOhost e-book in Adobe Digital Editions on your computer to your mobile device. Dropbox is a handy cloud storage service that can be used to facilitate this transfer. Go to http://www.dropbox.com to create a free account. (The free account comes with 2 gigabytes of storage–more than enough for routine e-book file transfers.) Write down your Dropbox email address and password.

You can use the Dropbox web interface on your computer to facilitate file uploads to your account, or you can download a dedicated desktop application (for Windows or Mac). However, it is strongly recommended that you download and install the mobile version of the Dropbox application to your mobile device (choose the appropriate version here). You only have to do this step once.

Step 2: Download and install Bluefire Reader to your device

The process for transferring EBSCOhost e-books to a compatible Apple iOS or Google Android device requires that you first download and install an application that can be authorized to communicate with Adobe Digital Editions and function as a book reader. Bluefire Reader is a free application that is excellent for these purposes. You can use Bluefire Reader to open PDF and EPUB files on your mobile device. Download and install the Apple iOS or Google Android version as appropriate. You only have to do this step once.

Step 3: Launch and authorize Bluefire Reader on your device

I am using Bluefire Reader on an Apple iPod touch here. Launch Bluefire Reader on your device and select “Info” from the application menu. Tap the “Authorize” button in the Enable Adobe eBooks box. This will bring up a screen for entering your Adobe ID account information. Tap “Authorize.”

 

Your device is now authorized to open and read e-books downloaded to Adobe Digital Editions on your computer. You only have to do this step once.

You now have everything in place to transfer and read EBSCOhost e-books on your mobile device. Let’s transfer an e-book now!

Step 4: Upload an EBSCOhost e-book to your Dropbox account

a) Go back to your computer. I downloaded a new e-book from EBSCOhost into Adobe Digital Editions following the instructions in Step 4 from my previous post. The process went much smoother the second time around!

b) Although the e-book loads into Adobe Digital Editions, the e-book file is actually stored in another folder on you computer. On a Windows PC browse to this folder is called “My Digital Editions,” which is located in your “My Documents” folder. Notice the e-book file titled “The Autobiography of Charles Darwin” (Note: Although the file is a PDF, it will not open as normal in Adobe Reader because it is copy-protected. Adobe Digital Editions registered with your Adobe ID enables you to open this copy-protected file.):

On an Apple Mac computer, the same file is found in the “Digital Editions” folder in your user “Documents” folder:

c) Sign into your Dropbox account. For this demonstration I am using the web interface at http://www.dropbox.com. When you sign in the first time you will see three folders.

d) For this demonstration I am going to upload the e-book file into the “Public” folder in my Dropbox. Double-click the “Public” folder to open it. Click on the “Upload” button (it is the document icon with the blue arrow pointing up to the far left of the “Search Dropbox” search box). This brings up the “Upload to ‘Public'” dialog box.

e) Click the blue “Choose files” button. Browse to the “My Digital Editions” (Windows) or “Digital Editions” (Mac) folder and locate the e-book file you would like to upload as described above. Highlight the file and click “Open”. (If the upload appears stalled, click the “basic uploader” link and try again.) The file is processed and uploaded into (in this case) your “Public” folder. When the upload is complete you will receive this message:

Clear the dialog box by clicking “Done”.

f) You should now see the uploaded file in your Dropbox “Public” folder.

Since Dropbox stores your uploaded documents to the “cloud,” you can access them on any computer or device with an internet connection. This is how you will now access this e-book file and transfer it onto your mobile device.

Step 5: Launch Dropbox on your mobile device and open the EBSCOhost e-book in Bluefire Reader

a) If you haven’t already done so, download the appropriate Dropbox application version for your mobile device (e.g., Apple iOS or Google Android).

b) Launch Dropbox and sign into your account. You must have an active connection to the internet in order to access your Dropbox.

 

c) Notice the same folders in your mobile Dropbox as in the desktop or browser-based version on your computer. Remember that you uploaded your e-book to the “Public” folder. Tap “Public” to open this folder. There is your e-book!

 

d) Tap on the e-book file to download it to your device. Notice that this is a PDF file.

 

e) The e-book file download to your device appears to be complete. But notice that you don’t see anything other than the title on the screen. This is because the file is copy-protected and can only be opened by an application authorized to view Adobe Digital Editions copy-protected files. This is where Bluefire Reader comes into play. Tap the download button on the lower right of the screen (the icon with an arrow pointing down into a tray). This brings up a dialog that includes an “Open In…” button. Tap this button. You are now presented with one or more applications that may be able to open this file. Tap the “Open in Bluefire” button.

 

f) Tapping the “Open in Bluefire” button launches the the Bluefire Reader application. Notice your e-book, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin in the Library list. Tap on this title to open the book. Start reading!

 

Step 6: Remove an expired e-book from your device

As with EBSCOhost e-books originally downloaded to your computer, when the checkout period expires you will no longer be able to open the book on your device. At this point, you may choose to delete the expired file from the Library list in Bluefire Reader using the application’s Edit > Delete feature.

Special Note about installing Bluefire Reader and the Dropbox mobile app on an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet

I mentioned above that Amazon’s E-Ink Kindles currently do not support e-books copy-protected using Adobe Digital Editions. Consequently, it is not possible to read e-books downloaded from EBSCOhost on your E-Ink Kindle.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets run a version of the Google Android operating system. Consequently, it is possible to install Android versions of both the Bluefire Reader application and the Dropbox mobile app on your Kindle Fire. However, getting these applications on your device requires a little extra tweaking. Follow these steps to prepare your Kindle Fire (part of these steps come courtesy of the Bluefire Reader blog):

a) Tap “Settings” on your Kindle Fire (it’s the icon that looks like a gear)
b) Tap “More”
c) Scroll down until you see “Device”
d) In the Device tab, set “Allow installation of Applications” to ON, and tap OK when you see the Warning prompt
e) Using the web browser on your Kindle Fire, go to http://www.bluefirereader.com/files/ and tap on BluefireReader.apk to download the Bluefire Reader application. Tap on this file to install the application on your Kindle Fire.
f) Using the web browser on your Kindle Fire, go to http://www.dropbox.com/android and download the Dropbox Android application. This app should be labeled Dropbox.apk. Tap on this file to install the application on your Kindle Fire.
g) Return to the instructions to continue with the e-book transfer procedure.

MCSearch & Milligan College featured in EBSCO’s “Customer Success Story” marketing

Posted on by

By creating a strong library research platform with the speed and simplicity of a commercial Internet search engine, Milligan College makes its library holdings even more accessible to students and faculty.

Soon after Milligan College Library’s launch of MCSearch in early September 2011, we were contacted by the public relations folks at EBSCO Publishing to do a “Customer Success” story for their promotional/marketing materials.

MCSearch is our custom implementation/branding of EBSCO’s Discovery Service platform. MCSearch is best described as a search engine that provides a user experience not unlike Google, but its search capabilities focus on library-provided information resources instead of the open Web. In our own promotion, we have branded MCSearch with the tagline “One search box–for the good stuff” to underscore the ease of use search experience applied to accessing the quality information resources provided by the Library.

We recently learned that our story has been released. Here is a direct link to the five page piece (pdf) covering the launch. Links to the story appear in two locations on EBSCO’s website: On the EBSCO Customer Success Center (see  http://www.ebscohost.com/customerSuccess/ > Colleges/Universities > Customer Success Stories), and on the EDS Support Center (see http://support.ebsco.com/eds > the Customer Success Stories section on the home page. Our story is the third item.) It’s a nice read that features both the Library and Milligan College. Check it out!

E-books now better than ever: Easy access, clean interface, off-line reading (Part 1)

Posted on by

Back in April, Mary Jackson wrote about significant improvements coming to many of the library’s e-books as a result of EBSCO Publishing’s acquisition of NetLibrary from OCLC in early 2010. These improvements have arrived, and I think they were worth the wait.

Introducing EBSCOhost eBook Collection

The P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library has a substantial collection of over 68,000 e-book titles that migrated from NetLibrary into what is now called EBSCOhost eBook Collection. (The library has e-books from other publishers and vendors–Mary noted we have over 73,000 titles in total. But this is by far our largest collection.) Library users familiar with our EBSCOhost databases (e.g., ATLAS, CINAHL, Education Research Complete, Humanities International Complete, PsycINFO, SocINDEX, etc.) will instantly feel at home navigating this e-book collection, because it actually is another EBSCOhost database. The only difference (though no small difference) is that it searches and displays book content instead of journal article content.

It has been our observation that students tend to prefer using journal articles in research because the search tools connected with accessing articles–especially full-text articles–make this easier, more convenient, and more productive. I believe applying this same capability to books will encourage greater use of this information resource format in student research. (As an aside, students need to appreciate that books and articles are different information ‘animals.’ They serve different functions. It isn’t simply that books are long and articles are short. Rather, books lend themselves to broad and developed treatment of topics, whereas articles tend to be very narrowly focused on a particular aspect of a topic. Because of their format and mandate, articles often do not have the luxury of providing the reader with extensive background or context. Consequently, over-reliance on journal articles can actually hamper a student’s ability to properly understand the development of a topic, its history, or the range of issues at play.)

The “problem” with books isn’t that they’re in print–in fact, students appear to still appreciate and in many cases prefer the printed book format. The “problem” is that print books are not easily searchable (though tables of contents and indexes intend to help). The search tool most strongly associated with finding books is the library catalog. But the catalog doesn’t search the content of a book. The catalog only searches records that point to their associated books (or media). A book record typically includes such things as title, author(s)/editor(s), publication information, subject headings (a controlled system of describing what the book is about), and maybe a table of contents. But not the content itself. This is an inherent limitation of a library catalog (which originated to efficiently organize descriptions of physical, print books). It’s not the catalog’s fault, of course. And for what it is designed to do, a library catalog is still a pretty nifty and powerful tool.

When we enter the digital realm of electronic books where space isn’t an issue–where a catalog record, as it were, can contain not just a “shorthand” description of the book’s contents but literally the entire text of the book–it suddenly becomes possible for a book to be entirely searchable, eliminating the “problem” described above. This is the really powerful capability provided by having our e-books on a platform like EBSCOhost eBook Collection.

In Part 2, I will take you on a quick tour of our EBSCOhost eBook Collection to demonstrate searching, e-book display and navigation, expanded printing, and a new capability for off-line (including to some mobile device) reading.

Introducing MCSearch: One search box–for the good stuff

Posted on by

The P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library is pleased to introduce MCSearch to the Milligan College community. What is MCSearch? We think our tagline says it all: “One search box–for the good stuff.”

One search box. Students are familiar with Google and other popular web search engines. They like the ease and convenience of being able to type a few keywords into a search box and get tons of results. But how relevant, reliable, or current is this information for academic research purposes? This is a serious question. Students need to acquire skills for evaluating information accessed from the open web. (The Library provides instruction to students in information literacy skills like information resource evaluation.) However, given a choice between digging hard for the best available information resources or the convenience of a Google search, students are often satisfied with “good enough.”

What if there was a tool available that provided the ease and convenience of a Google search, but the information resources searched and results returned were those provided by the Library? Students could get to the stuff that was truly good instead of just good enough. This is exactly what MCSearch does.

The good stuff. Every year the Library spends tens of thousands of dollars to provide Milligan College students and faculty with high quality information resources to support their coursework and research. Books, media, print and electronic journals and magazines, e-books, subject-based print and electronic reference works (encyclopedias and dictionaries), and numerous subject-based and multidisciplinary databases for accessing journal articles online. We also provide an array of tools such as online library catalogs, journal finders, link resolvers, and database interfaces to help students and faculty search these resources. We make this investment because, frankly (and contrary to much conventional current day “wisdom”), you can’t get everything you need on the open web. Academic information resources are costly to produce, publish and distribute. Although there is a slowly growing open access movement in academic communication online, generally speaking, the good stuff isn’t free.

One search box, again. The “killer feature” that makes a search engine like Google so powerful and compelling is that a single query is applied simultaneously across a multitude of sites and resources on the World Wide Web. Can you imagine having to browse or search each site on the web individually to try to find information you were looking for? I’m showing my age here, but I first got online in 1994, almost 5 years before the Google search engine started attracting attention on the Web. I still remember when Yahoo! was literally just a running list of websites. But enough about that. My point is that search engines have profoundly altered the way we search for information. What if it were possible to apply some of this kind of power when searching the Library’s information resources–a single query applied simultaneously to the Library catalog and databases, rather than searching each of these sources individually? This is exactly what MCSearch does.

The emphasis is on discovery. As the Library evaluated the various print and electronic information resources it provides to students and faculty, it occurred to us that in many ways we have enough stuff. What we felt we needed was a way to make the stuff we have more discoverable. MCSearch is not about “dumbing down” the research process, or pandering to the bad study habits of lazy students. Using a search engine effectively still requires skill and discernment. But because MCSearch applies a search query across a range of Library resources and formats at once, it can bring to the surface information a student may not have otherwise discovered through conventional means. This brings a delightful element of serendipity to the research process.

Filter on the way out. Because general or broad keyword searches tend to return too many results that are not necessarily relevant, conventional catalog and database searching with limited features encourages the user to formulate precise search queries in advance to get the best results. MCSearch also allows the user to apply limiters to search queries in advance to narrow search results. However, a particularly powerful capability of MCSearch is the ability to filter results after the search is completed. MCSearch includes the ability to easily refine or “facet” results by various criteria (date, format, subject, provider, etc.). This capability removes the “problem” of too many results, while still providing the opportunity to discover valuable resources from unexpected sources.

Try it out now! We will be providing more usage assistance in subsequent posts and instruction sessions. But right now I would like to encourage you to just take some time to play around with MCSearch and get familiar with its capabilities. Feel free to contact us with any questions, and we especially welcome your feedback.

Plato, the invention of writing, and the e-book

Posted on by

This post originally appeared on my now inactive blog, Voyage of the Paradigm Ship, January 19, 2009.

The following is a two-part email I sent to my good friend and colleague (he is chair of the faculty Library Committee) on March 27 and 29, 2006, after he sent me an editorial written by Edward Tenner in The New York Times, entitled “Searching for Dummies” (March 26, 2006). My friend is a history professor and an avid bibliophile. Though he has largely “come around” to my way of thinking regarding the benefits of electronic delivery of journal literature, he is far more resistive when it comes to surrendering the marvelous technology expressed as the printed book. He knows he has been socialized into this preference, but insists that a full embrace of computer and electronic information resource technology is damaging his students’ capacity to think through complex ideas in a sustained and deep way. I retort that our task should not be rejection of the technology but the instruction into its proper use, and building an awareness (understanding) both of its advantages/limitations and its impact (both good and ill) on human culture and knowledge. In my argument I drew an analogy from another ancient technology—writing itself.

Greetings. Further to our on-going conversation (print vs. electronic information resources), here is an interesting excerpt from Plato’s Phaedrus, where Socrates tells a story of the Egyptian god Theuth, the inventor of, among other things, writing. I have not read the full piece, but it is interesting here to see Plato’s critique of the losses sustained by writing (and reading) as a new technology over oral culture and true memory.

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters [grammata=writing]. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. Theuth came to him and showed his inventions [technas, “arts”], desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them. Thamus enquired about their several uses, and as Theuth enumerated them, Thamus praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts [technai]. But when they came to letters [grammata], Theuth said, “This invention, O King, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; I have discovered a remedy [pharmakon: potion, medicine, drug] both for the memory and for wisdom.” Thamus replied: “O most ingenious [technikotate] Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a power opposite to that which they in fact possess. For this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it; they will not exercise their memories, but, trusting in external, foreign marks [graphes], they will not bring things to remembrance from within themselves. You have discovered a remedy [pharmakon] not for memory, but for reminding. You offer your students the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom. They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

This is all very ironic in view of our conversation. We long ago adopted the writing technology of Theuth. We frankly no longer know what we lost through its adoption, since we have lived under its ideological assumptions for so long. Neil Postman, in his book Technolopy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Vintage, 1992) alludes to this story in rightly claiming the non-neutral and ideological function of every technology and technological adoption.

I have contended in our conversation that print books are every bit as much a technological invention of information transmission, and laden with ideology, as any book in electronic format. Postman urges caution, in deference to your concerns. I am not insensitive to these, of course. I am no heedless technophile any more than you are a heedless technophobe. My real point is offered by Postman where he writes: “[Thamus] would allow, I imagine, that a technology may be barred entry to a culture…But…once a technology is admitted, it plays out its hand; it does what it is designed to do. Our task is to understand what that design is—that is to say, when we admit a new technology to the culture, we must do so with our eyes wide open.” (p. 7, emphasis added)

For good or ill, electronic information technology has been admitted into our culture. Since this technology has become proliferated into every facet of our students’ lives, it no longer makes sense to bar it here at Milligan College Library as some well-meaning bulwark against the flood. That is the surest recipe for irrelevance. Yes, we can and should keep the books around and in plain sight as an act of ideological subversion. But I believe our mandate now is to fight, not by insisting that our students use the books, but by building understanding instead of heedlessness. This is the instructional role of a comprehensive program of information literacy. Data is not information; information is not knowledge; and knowledge is not yet wisdom. Wisdom comes through passionate, responsible (ethical), critical (discerning) and mature use of information, and the organization of information that forms into structures of knowledge. This, it seems to me, has always been our task. Only now we can’t take anything for granted.

* * *

Plato, by having Socrates tell this story, is engaging in a form of rhetoric. Everything here is inescapably in written form! But for Plato this is also a concession and (what we are calling “ironic” in our current conversation) really a paradox. Plato writes to critique writing! But not all writing, as not all speech, is of equal value. For Plato, writing that preserves the living dialogical (mind-to-mind conversational) nature of true human (philosophical) knowledge, and which asks more questions than it answers, is the best. Incidentally, much of Plato’s writing is construed as dialogue between great philosophical minds. But he would say that even his writing is a concession, if only because of the inherent limitations of written communication. [See Robin Waterfield’s excellent commentary on this in the section of his Introduction to Plato’s Phaedrus (Oxford World’s Classics, 2002) entitled, “Dialectic and the Weakness of Writing,” pages xxxvii-xlii.]

My original allusion to this story, and giving it out as ironic, is a technical (pun intended!) misuse of Plato’s intention. But my warrant for it (as also picked-up by Neil Postman) is that Theuth is said to have invented writing. As such, writing is unmistakably recognized as a technology. As a tool, technology requires instruction for its proper use, and (because it is not value neutral) requires an awareness (understanding) of its advantages/limitations and its impact (both good and ill) on human culture and knowledge.

I think this is really the point of Plato’s critique. I imagine Plato would prefer not to use writing in human discourse because of its inherent limitations. But paradoxically, he has no choice to use writing if he wants his ideas disseminated and preserved (for reminding, not for true memory, as Thamus notes!). So, given the inherent limitations of writing, he must instruct his readers (in the guise of the highly-esteemed Socrates) into an awareness through critique of how this technology functions, and what is the most profitable writing form—the form that best preserves dialogical nature of human knowledge.

By analogy, you (and I) have come to view the writing of and reading from printed books as the best form for preserving and engaging the accumulated ideas of human knowledge. (You may quibble on my wording, but the basic gist is there, right?) We honestly believe and assume that a living conversation is still preserved within those pages for fresh engagement. We are no longer troubled by Plato’s concerns because we have come to view the book as a most acceptable means of disseminating and preserving ideas. To us, it is no longer a mere concession. Rather, it has been (for the last several thousands of years) the primary technology for this very purpose. Praise be to Theuth for his miraculous invention!

But now, after a very lengthy and productive stint with the printed form of the book, along comes a new technology that proposes a new form—an electronic/digital form. [I’m still in analogy mode here.] How do we react to this? Well, we may sense that this new technology will, to quote Thamus, “create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it; they will not exercise their memories, but, trusting in external, foreign [virtual!] marks, they will not bring things to remembrance from within themselves.” We offer appropriate critique. To use this new technology implies a concession (but not the same level of paradox, since it still involves the use of writing [with multimedia capabilities thrown-in]). The preferred use or non-use of this technology does not (yet?) place a person in a “I have no choice” position as it did for Plato. But the use of this technology does involve certain advantages and certain limitations. And so, the use of this technology requires instruction for its proper use, and (because it is not value neutral) requires an awareness (understanding) of its advantages/limitations and its impact (both good and ill) on human culture and knowledge.

So, I would argue that Plato makes my case—though not because he is forced (paradoxically/ironically) to use writing even while critiquing it. The analogy is not in equating the move from printed book to digital book with Plato’s paradoxical move from using a pure form of human knowledge transmission (oral communication) and preservation (memory) to a compromised form through writing and (mere) reminding. The analogy, rather, is that given the invention of the electronic/digital form of the book and its inevitable/increasing use, we now need to instruct in its proper use and build an awareness of its advantages/limitations and its cultural impact. Thamus critiqued writing at its invention (in the ancient time of the myth). Plato critiques it (as it were) after long use. Thamus could warn the god of the dire unintended consequences of its use. Plato can allude to those warnings in order to offer contemporary instruction, even as he himself uses the technology!

I would say Plato was doing a form of information literacy. And so the New York Times Op-Ed piece [Edward Tenner, “Searching for Dummies,” March 26, 2006]. Information literacy is a “fighting back” strategy to the (dire?) unintended consequences of the miraculous invention called the Internet … and information resource access via electronic databases. Information literacy is instruction in the proper use and awareness-building of this new technology. What do you think?