Books for Kindle, Nook or the IPad Forum

[swishin and dishin]

To all current students,

I plan on spending a bunch of time commuting to/from law school, so I was wondering if most books are accessible through any of these devices (Kindle, Nook, IPad). Really trying to avoid carrying all the books back and forth, so I was hoping there may be a different way of accessing them.

Are there highlight/stickie note features on any of them?
Any things that can't be done that are deal-breakers or really frustrating?

Any one in particular that may be better than the others?

Thanks

[kalvano]

If you put your books on an e-reader, not only do you lose the ability to take margin notes, which might prove very helpful, but a great deal of exams prohibit any type of electronic device, so you'd be missing your textbook during the exam, which can be incredibly important.

This has also been covered tons of times. Try searching for it.

[pixleprincess]

Not an answer to this exactly, but a suggestion- I had major commuting in undergrad and grad school and I actually cut apart my large books into sections- I might do this next year too because I have mobility issues and lugging the books will be a killer. I've seen used law books for sale that have been carved up so at least some other folks do this.

[yeff]

Many people do cut books.

But if you're into reading electronically, some publishers are making it possible. This semester Aspen was selling an electronic copy of one of my books from something outrageous like $130, but offering a big discount if you bundled it with a new hard copy. So I did that and sold the new copy without opening it. I think the net cost was like $30 or $40.

I've never found having the casebook in an exam too useful, so it worked out great even though I was left with just my notes and outline on the test.

[morris248]

Amazon is starting to put more and more on Kindle. Here is the link to what is currently available for Torts


Kindle Torts for Lawschool

There is probably going to be more available for the Kindle than the others

[cpdc2013]

Kindle has a few but not many. Most commercial outlines are available on kindle though.

[inchoate_con]

If you put your books on an e-reader, not only do you lose the ability to take margin notes, which might prove very helpful, but a great deal of exams prohibit any type of electronic device, so you'd be missing your textbook during the exam, which can be incredibly important.

This has also been covered tons of times. Try searching for it.

What? tons of apps for this... and stylus that work with iPads. Not the cheap route, but the best thus far: Buy scansnap S1500 OCR 1000 page casebook in an hour; couple PDF annotation apps with Dropbox, and I haven't read a casebook in 2 years. Excellent transition into the paperless law office. Granted, it was either this or get a rollie bag like the old ladies.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

If you put your books on an e-reader, not only do you lose the ability to take margin notes, which might prove very helpful, but a great deal of exams prohibit any type of electronic device, so you'd be missing your textbook during the exam, which can be incredibly important.

This has also been covered tons of times. Try searching for it.

TBF- while it's nice to have a textbook as a safety net during an open-book exam, every open book exam I've had my casebook has stayed untouched the whole time. It would've taken pure desperation to have to start flipping around a casebook to find an answer that wasn't either in my notes or in an outline I brought. (And if OP wants a book solely for a safety net for exams, he can probably check it out of the law school library that week/day. At least UT has copies of textbooks for most classes that can be checked out.)

The margin notes might be the biggest downside (not really during tests, but just to have to help explain things while you read it and to remind yourself of it later when you are reviewing things), but you can just keep everything in your notes or I think most e-readers allow a notes function (but I really don't know).