Just finished one of my busiest teaching weeks ever with 2 to 3 hours of lecturing a day. Now utterly exhausted and just want to sit down. Should head home at some point though.

Next week looks a bit quieter which is a relief.

OK, I want to rant.

ebooks - they really haven't 'arrived' yet...

I've bought books for some time from an excellent provider of ebooks - both fiction and non-fiction. I've mentioned them here before but am not going to do so here because they're not at fault.

I regularly get promotional emails from them highlighting books in categories I've asked for and sometimes I see something I'd like to buy.

Of late, however, I've noticed that I've been unable to buy a title on several occasions. Why? Because I don't happen to live in the right country. This wasn't previously a problem but apparently now publishers are tightening up.

One book that I spent a lot of money on buying in Palm format and which I read and refer to regularly, I now *cannot* have on my iPod Touch simply because this restriction has come in since my original purchase of the book and my purchase of the Touch.

Aaaaargh!

Query this morning from one of the folk who attended the ebook afternoon on Wednesday. Not about devices but about the actual ebook I was showing on my old Palm.

I happened to be reading an e-version of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology which I bought a while back for reference. It sounds as dull as ditchwater and is a monstrous book in print of over 1200 pages. (9000+ on the small Palm screen!) However, it's exceedingly well written and approachable to the layperson and can even be used in a devotional way. So I thought I might read it slowly over the course of this year.

It made a good demo as it's a reasonably complex book with detailed contents pages, footnotes and small line diagrams which the Palm version reproduces faithfully. But I didn't expect anyone to care about the book itself. Only goes to show.

Anyway, must run... our President is coming to talk to us about university finances. He doesn't often make an appearance in the Library and this is the first time in the three and a half years I've been here that we've shut the issue desk and all the enquiry desks so that staff can attend.

Two days off and of course although I unwound nicely - all it means now is that I'm again stressed and oppressed by all that's piled up in my absence.

Still, this afternoon was interesting. The library hosted some 33 librarians from the region for a session promoting ebooks. We had three slots: one colleague presenting the results of a survey that she and I did on student ebook usage; one sales rep selling and doing a demo of our most popular ebook platform (on which we have 44,000 titles); and myself talking about my experiences with ebooks over more than a decade and showing off everything from an old Palm IIIx through to a couple of iPhones taking in a Palm T3, Nokia phone, couple of Sony 505s, Sony 600, and 2 iTouches on the way. Oh and the iPad courtesy of Steve Jobs himself on a video link!

My thanks to the colleagues (and my Mom!) who bravely lent me the devices to allow everyone a go with the devices. And my special thanks to whatever delegate wrote on a feedback form "quite taken with last session" ! Quite made my day.

(Particularly after a sermon preached at the weekend got an "I warmed to the last third" comment from the vicar...)