Reading Deeply: Kindle, Obrist, and Ways of Curating

I have been experimenting, slowly over many months, with the notes function of Kindle.  I wasn’t quite sure how it would work for me to read full books digitally, to highlight as my form of taking notes, and to import into other forms.  It was all fuzzy for me.  I tried out different aspects, moving carefully, and, interestingly, without reverting to “Google It!” to solve the problem or give me an overview. 

Reading digitally in the kindle is important to me because the time is already upon us when there may not be a paper form.  I was also concerned about the 10% limit on highlighted sections for export rule.  Would I capture enough for my purposes?  A third concern was, how was I going to keep a sense of the whole, the chapter structure in which the quotes were embedded? 

Obrist’s Ways of Curating was the first text where I really went to town with the highlighter and have now imported the notes.  Here are some things I learned.

1.       Go ahead and save in the html format, because there is an option for editing in Word 2016.  It works.

2.      The highlights will be in embedded in the chapter format—the chapter headings will be there.

3.      You can also highlight the table of contents and it will save at the beginning (but in a long line of text like a single sentence). 

4.      In the digital version you can see the top places others have highlighted—I, therefore, didn’t highlight there, but if it is something you want, go ahead and do it also so you can bring it into your notes. 

5.      Reading the captured highlights is similar and different to reading the larger text.  It’s like an out-of-body experience.  Reminds me of how people quote/place quotes everywhere today.  We are “quote crazy”. 

My next possibilities for using this text was to import to NVivo if I were going to use it in a particular study…and eventually export to Endnote with the reference.  This is overkill until I have a specific use for it.   

In my next blog post I will share selected quotes from the Obrist reading to give you a sense of what all the quoteness feels like.