Is a question worth asking oneself. And not just because we are coming up on the centennial anniversaries of the sinking of the Titanic, the opening of Fenway Park, and the three-way race for the White House between incumbent William Howard Taft, New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson, and Bull Mooser Teddy Roosevelt, fascinating though these things are.

Since getting my Kindle one month ago I have been downloading various titles that are in the public domain. Others have been doing the same. For historians of the Civil War era this is a treasure trove; all works published before 1923, which means most Civil War and Reconstruction titles written by primary players, are in the public domain. A few things stored in my cloud include Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (deathbed edition), James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and Leander Stillwell’s The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865. All were free and downloaded to my device in a matter of seconds. I plan to use my Kindle and iPad for further primary resources in the coming months. If you are hesitating, I encourage you to explore the ereader option for at least some of your reading and research. You will be surprised at how easy it is and what is available.

(Dreiser’s The Financier was published in 1912./image Open Library)

In one hundred and fifty years we have gone from this

To this

Here is something you would not have heard me say six months ago: I just downloaded a magazine to my mobile device. And it wasn’t just any magazine but the The Atlantic’s Civil War Commemorative Issue. I am looking forward to the essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jeffrey Goldberg. Also included are pieces from The Atlantic’s vaults by Emerson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Frederick Douglass, and others. President Obama wrote the introduction.

Since August we have added two Kindle readers, a Kindle Fire, an iPad 1, and a Mac Air to our household. To say it has been a lifestyle change would be an understatement. For one thing, there are cords and plugs in a pile on the living room floor; something is always being recharged. I still have a steep learning curve and there have been some frustrations along the way, but I have enjoyed the process. What is interesting about the Civil War Sesquicentennial is that it has coincided with the mainstreaming of the blogosphere, social media, and mobile reading devices. Whether it was 1861 0r 2011 it is still about the content, though. A day hasn’t gone by since the sesquicentenial began where I haven’t learned something. Exciting times.

I got a knock on the door this evening and on the other side was the UPS man with two packages.  In one was our new Fire; the other contained the His and Hers Kindle Touches we’ve been looking forward to.  I’ve spent a good part of the evening configuring them, which is not too arduous a task but a bit of a challenge for yours truly given that this is new to me.  To make the time go, I downloaded the new Pink Martini album, 1969, to the tablet.  I think I have bought my last cd.  Remember buying compact discs in the early 1990s and thinking they were state of the art?  Today the ones still remaining on my shelves look old and tired.  I am speaking at the Researching New York conference in a few days and I think I needed to not think about my presentation for a night.  I am looking forward to taking the ereader on the train to Albany.

Happy Reading.

Hey everybody, it is Sunday evening.  I hope you had a good weekend.  I went to Greenwood Cemetery this morning, where I took these photos on my cellphone.  The leaves have not yet changed but the smell of fall was very much in the air.

We recently bought a used iPad 1 and I spent a good chunk of the weekend downloading various apps, syncing them with my Mac Air, and learning how to use them.  Becoming more technically proficient has been one of my goals for 2011.  I downloaded Dropbox, Evernote, and GoodReader, among other things.  I wanted to get these three in particular because I have a number of projects coming due and want to maximize my efforts.  If anyone has any productivity tips, feel free to pass them along.  It hasn’t been all work, though.  I subscribed to the NFL radio package and am listening to the last few minutes of the Packers-Vikings game as I write this.  We downloaded some Buddhist apps for the Hayfoot as well.

Have a good week.

Because the Hayfoot and I do not have a television we rely heavily on Netflix for films and, especially, television shows.  Given the intense demands of her graduate school classes and the solemn nature of my reading and writing about the Civil War and slavery, we tend to go for lighter fare.  Sometimes you just have to sit back, relax, and laugh.  Last night I got my credit card statement with its 60% increase in our monthly Netflix charges.  I had been following the story of the company’s restructuring with moderate interest these past few weeks, but it wasn’t until seeing it in print, right there on my bill, that it really hit me.

I believe the company made the right move.  We are moving away from digital content contained on disc.  Someday we will all look back with a laugh at the time when we got our movies and favorite television shows via the mailman.  (I will miss the small thrill of opening the box and finding the little red envelope.)  The other day I mentioned that the Miles Davis set I purchased may indeed be the last compact discs I ever buy.  The Mac Air I bought early last month does not even contain a disc drive.  When I want software I merely log on to the Apple store and download the content, which is on my computer within minutes.  Remember buying Windows 95 all those years ago, driving home, and spending all that time reading the directions and uploading?  Who would want to return to that?  When the iCloud arrives this fall it will take things to an even higher level.

So I don’t blame Reed Hastings for taking his company in this direction.  Even the name changes make sense.  The company does not want to associate its name with the dying industry that is dvds.  Hence Netflix represents the future (streaming) and Qwikster the past (discs via snail mail).  The division of the two services may have been premature because streaming is not yet an option for all.  Moreover, the amount of content available in this medium is currently limited.  Still, the restructuring does make sense.

The problem was in the execution.  The company could have done more to explain the new model and articulate customers’ options.  Personally we do not plan on leaving Netflix anytime soon, though I did modify our plan last night.  What has always made Netflix so great was its quick and convenient service.  If they are not careful the company may lose that.  We’ll see if they learn from their mistakes and regain their footing.  If not, Netflix may go the way of Pan Am and IBM.  I hope not.

(Image/Blue Mint)