The bookshops are closed, the libraries are closed, and there are only a few books waiting to be read, so I thought I’d try downloading an e-book for viewing on the iPad.
I found an app called Libby, which links to my local library account, and decided to start with George Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying, a book I last read 50 years ago!
The app works really well, both for finding e-books and for the actual reading. My old iPad is rather heavy but I worked out how best to hold it for a comfortable reading position. It was surprisingly easy to read the e-book, in fact I think the larger text and fewer words on each page improved my reading concentration. Or perhaps I was just enjoying the novel so much.
So a successful trial, at no cost, and when I’ve finished my current paperback novel I’ll look out for another e-book from the library.
An interesting article in today’s Guardian reports on how scientists at the University of Reading are asking Britons with time on their hands to help digitise historic rainfall data. “Under the Rainfall Rescue project, volunteers will fill the gaps in British digital weather records between the 1820s and the 1950s by transcribing observations from scans of the old paper records.”
I’ve done a fair amount of data entry in my working life so I thought why not. If I’m not reading or blogging I’d only be playing Klondike on the Washington Post website!
Here’s an example of the procedure I have to follow. It’s all quite straightforward.
things change 