Caveat Lector

So I’m all like, hey, what a cool book they’re reading! I want to read it too! Let’s see if the library has it.

Ooo, they’ve got it as an eBook! Yay! From NetLibrary. Boo. Oh, well, maybe OCLC finally fixed that brain-dead page-based interface, such that one can finally read a connected text as, well, a connected text.

Oh. I see. OCLC hasn’t fixed the brain-dead page-based interface.

Screw it. I’m not fighting with NetLibrary’s idiotic ideas about on-screen reading. I’ll have the p-book sent to the SLIS library.

$DEITY have mercy, no wonder people hate eBooks.

(Oh, and the actual design of the text on the “page”? I could do better after my first six months at Impressions. There’s no excuse for that, people, it’s just CSS! And text artisanry. Which NetLibrary never had, and OCLC apparently hasn’t given them.)

Bummer. Can’t check the p-book out from the library; it’s on closed reserve. You know what? Rather than use the clicky-clicky-clicky NetLibrary interface? I’ll wait. I’ll wait for it.

You know, I have a hard enough time evangelizing e-text. It just galls me when stupid design decisions and unwillingness to give text artisanry its due make my pitch that much more of a hard-sell.