Review of Irwin Law iPad App

I had an opportunity to download the new Irwin Law iPad app recently along with a copy of Ted Tjaden’s Legal Research and Writing text. We have a copy of this excellent title in our firm library in print or course, but for testing purposes, I thought it would be a good choice for an eBook.

First I want to congratulate Jeff Miller and his team at Irwin Law. They made an excellent choice of partners in Nubook. The Irwin Law app was easy to find in the Apple App Store, the download process was simple. It was also very easy to register, and visit the Irwin Law eBook Store to acquire my purchase.

The app came with three pieces of documentation: a Quick Reference Guide, a lengthy User Guide, and a short user guide specific to Irwin Law. The Quick Reference Guide shows most of the features available in Nubook partner apps. The longer user guide shows the possibilities available, including embedding video clips in an eBook.

The content and readability of this Irwin Law text transfers very well to the eBook format. The electronic advantages of having a linked table of contents available on the page at will, the ability to highlight, underline, and annotate, not to mention searching the content, are excellent use cases for having a personal copy of your favourite title on your own device.

My favourite feature of this text is the ability to link out from the footnotes and the way that the app ensures you want to open a webpage.

My only problem now is budgeting so that anyone in my organization can have any item they need in any format that strikes their fancy. A better problem to have than content in only one format.

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” (Groucho Marx) “Unless you have a backlit eReader.” (Shaunna Mireau)