The study by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), a trade group representing both print and digital publishers, found that 75 percent of college students prefer print textbooks over electronic versions. Reasons for preferring print included “fondness for print’s look and feel, as well as its permanence and ability to be resold.”

This suggests that the preference for printed books will decrease once e-books become comparatively cheaper than paper books, and when they become as easy (or easier) to resell. But for researchers and web workers alike, printed books provide significant advantages that go far beyond “new book smell” or intelligent margin notes made by a previous owner.

Sensory Advantages

Readers can have multiple hard-copy texts open simultaneously for at-a-glance cross-referencing: something that’s far more difficult when you have just one screen on which to view e-books. This, together with the larger page size of many printed books, means they can be shared among groups of researchers more easily.

More information is often available in a single view in print books than in an e-book, even if you’re using an iPad or large-format Kindle DX. Also, researchers can take in the key features of an adjoining print page.

I tend to remember where to find particular pieces of information, based on my memory of looking at the content on the page: was it on the left-hand side of the spread, or the right? My books also tend to have saw-tooth rows of color-coded sticky notes down their page edges. Electronic bookmarks and apps like iAnnotate can’t replace the ability to augment existing pages to more easily tell where a needed piece of information lies; e.g., it’s at the second pink sticky note, or half-way down the page that has the fifth yellow sticky note. I can see this information from across the room, and without opening the book.

Of course, there are other sensory considerations that help me remember where to find information in printed books, such as:

• How much of the book was I holding in each hand (that is, how far through the book did the content appear)?
• Was it before or after that wrinkled page that got wet in the rain that day I was reading at the park?

This plethora of “extraneous” sensory information makes it easier to recall not just where pieces of information can be found, but, often, the information itself.

Learning Advantages

Printed books don’t have a handy search function, it’s true, though many have indexes. But as I’ve suggested,  search is among the least of the tools that we need in order to absorb new knowledge. Taking in new concepts, language, and philosophies often requires us to construct entirely new mental schematics. In our minds, we may relate the physical layouts of printed books to our new mental maps, and to the information contained in these maps.

Printed books currently make for a richer, more memorable, and more easily understood learning experience than today’s electronic offerings can provide.  The real questions are: How long will these advantages last? And how will developer of e-readers and e-books make their products more useful for the sorts of research that web workers do?

Do you prefer print or e-books for learning?

Image by sxc.hu user lusi.

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There’s no shortage of free learning materials available online for both new and experienced freelancers. While you can turn to hundreds of articles and blog posts, there’s nothing like reading a longer, more comprehensive book to really get some insight on a particular topic.

Here’s a collection of some great downloadable PDFs, e-books and manifestos:

Freelancing and Teleworking

Go Freelance

Leif Kendall’s “Go Freelance” is an introductory guide to the world of freelancing. You’ll go through the process of preparing yourself for the leap to the freelance world, finding work, networking and setting rates. If you’ve been freelancing for while, some of Kendall’s advice might seem elementary. But if you’re a new freelancer or about to become one, you can easily learn the basics from this e-book.

A Human’s Guide to Freelance Living

Unlike the nuts-and-bolts guide listed above, this PDF from Charlie Pabst focuses on productivity and work habits. As practicing freelancers know, these things are just as important as business skills.

Business Tips

Your Business Brickyard

Howard Mann’s guide strips away the non-essentials of business building, allowing you to “go back to the brickyard” and start with the fundamentals. It’s a useful book if you’re encountering problems with your business. On the first reading, I was able to take a long, honest look at my own freelancing practice and spot several weaknesses. There’s also an accompanying goal-setting worksheet you can download.

Getting Real

“Getting Real” from 37signals (the company behind the popular project management app, Basecamp) may be about building web apps, but many of the ideas are applicable to almost any kind of freelancing endeavor — especially if you find yourself working with a group. This e-book is free to read online, but if you prefer to read it as a printed book or downloadable PDF, you’ll have to buy it.

100 Ways to Help You Make Money

Although the title sounds gimmicky, the advice contained in this guide by management guru Tom Peters is practical. It includes points on thanking your clients, getting up early and finding your story. At over 60 pages, this book is much longer than most of the guides in this collection, so you might want to read this in small doses over a few days.

Improving Your Web Presence

The Simple Web

For anyone who has ever wanted more from their blog or web site, Skellie recommends that you evaluate each element based on four categories — Gripping, Resonating, Interacting and Talking. As the name implies, the ideas in this guide are simple and easy to implement.

Killer Flagship Content

This is required reading for anyone with a professional blog. In this e-book, Chris Garrett talks about the importance of compelling blog posts, the “flagship” content that will be the core of your blog. (Note: a feed subscription is required to download the book)

Rockstar Personal Branding

If you’re new to personal branding, this free download provides a clear, actionable introduction. Throughout the guide, Skellie asks some simple yet compelling questions that can help anyone form their brand, be they generalists or specialists. Other topics include how to craft your personal elevator pitch and how to leverage blogging for your brand. (Note: a newsletter subscription is required to download the book.)

Inspiration

The Liberation Manifesto

In this guide, Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind lists the reasons why you should liberate yourself from the cubicle-bound lifestyle. Mead provides an inspirational boost to aspiring teleworkers, particularly if they have a rebellious streak. A recommended read for those who can’t seem to push themselves to take the first step.

How to be Creative

Hugh MacLeod, best known for his business card cartoons over at Gapingvoid.com, compiled this honest, straightforward collection of blog posts on what it takes to be creative. It’s worth reading over and over again, especially when you’re feeling uninspired or frustrated with your work.

Have you read or made any e-books that you’d like other WWD readers to know about? Share them with us in the comments.

Image by lusi from sxc.hu

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If readers can download books into their Kindle (or Sony Reader), what’s to stop them from cutting out the middleman and downloading directly from an author?

What’s happening to the news media (blogs vs. newspapers) and music (free downloads vs. buying a CD) and video (YouTube or downloads vs. buying a DVD) will happen with novels: the middleman will become unnecessary.

Currently, it is extremely difficult to get a novel published. A novelist might spend a few months writing a great novel, and then submit his manuscript to a bunch of publishers (or hire an agent to do it for him). He’ll most likely be rejected completely by all of them, because publishers get thousands and thousands of submissions, and can only print a handful. If a novel is accepted by a publisher, there’s a long process of editing, layout and design, marketing, and so forth, just to get the book into print, into bookstores, and into the hands of the readers.

Consider the electronic version of this process: an author writes a book (and preferably has it edited) … and sells it to you via his website. So much easier! Sure, Stephen King experimented with this unsuccessfully in the past, but there wasn’t a market then. In a few years, there might be.

So let’s take a look at Amazon’s business model with the new Kindle e-book reader: publishers will give them an electronic version of the book, and Amazon will re-sell it for $9.99. That’ll still limit most people to a few purchases a month.

But take a look at the blogging model: we give our writing and information away for free. Sure, there are millions of bloggers giving away their writing for free, because anyone can do it. Bloggers, then, have learned that to get attention and readership, they have to learn to differentiate themselves, with quality and usefulness and value. They still make money, if they can do that, but they don’t charge the reader for each post.

Will novelists eventually give their novels away for free? Only time will tell. I’m betting that those novelists who can’t get accepted by a publisher will definitely give away their content for free. I bet there are a lot of great novelists out there who don’t get published. Soon, the publishers and Amazon will be competing with free novels, and it’s only a matter of time before major authors cut out the publishers and Amazon and sell their books themselves, perhaps for half price (still getting more than they do with the current setup).

The e-book reader removes the need for a publisher and bookstore. The author, then, becomes the only important element in the business, and rightfully so.

Ultimately, the market will determine what happens, and which business model will win out, but I’m betting on the blog model: people are less likely to pay for newspapers and magazines if they can get great stuff on blogs for free.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Operators’ Strategies for Connected Devices
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce