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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 1058544" data-attributes="member: 2525">My bad, I was not clear enough on this point.I meant it is not on your shelf, when you scan the shelf looking for inspiration and see the binder edge or cover, or when it falls off the shelf or you take a group of books down and you see the cover, with the image on the cover and the description on the back, as a whole an complete work in front of you (as opposed to accessable, but not all in front of you).  With a pdf, unless the title itself is sufficient to inspire you, it won't really have this impact on you.To get a better impression of this effect, walk into a library and just start looking at the shelves.  Something will strike your fancy and you will take a book down...and it might not be the title.   Sometimes it's a cover, sometimes the size of the book physically in comparison to other books, sometimes the color, sometimes the authors names, sometimes because it looks well used by other readers, whatever. PDFs rarely have this effect.  If a library were just full of computer terminals, you could find the specific book you are looking for, or a list of book titles in a subject, but it wouldn't quite have the same inspirational effect as going through shelves with more than just a title.</blockquote>