Speaking of things I want to link to that might come in handy for teaching English 516 next year: “University Presses Start to Sell Via Kindle,” in Inside Higher Ed. There’s been some discussion about this on the WPA-L mailing list, and my post there was basically that this just makes sense as the next logical trend for both the device and university publishing.
My friend Troy has one of these things and loves it; from what I’ve been able to tell (having not actually seen one in the wild), I don’t think these things are quite ready for prime-time. Still, if they come out with one of these things that can handle color, that can do a better job handing note-taking and such, and that is a little more affordable ($359 is a little steep for me), then I could see this being an important tool for both academic publishing and textbook publishing/reading.
I have to say that I love my Kindle! Textbooks are still too expensive in my opinion, but it is great for reading fiction (10 bucks for cloth and usually about 5-6 for paperbacks). One of our local libraries now loans ebooks so I pop those right on there too.
As for scholarly usage, I can put electronic versions of journals, dissertations, and any pdf on there to read and comment on. I highly recommend searching one out to see how you like it in person. There are things that can be improved on in the next version, but the e-ink is beautiful and easy on the eyes (unfortunately color is a ways off for this technology).
I am a Kindle owner (and I love mine), but it ain’t for everyone. It does its one thing really, really well, but I doubt even fellow Kindle lovers would describe it as versatile.
What will be interesting is whether or not independent publishers and individuals will get traction trying to publish via Kindle.