Thing #9: eBooks

I'm still not 100% certain how I feel about eBooks, but they are growing on me. When I first saw my co-workers sitting at the break room table reading on their Nooks, I told myself that I would never go there because I liked the feel of a real book. I also wasn't sure how I would feel about looking at a screen that resembled the computer screen I already stare at all day long. When I was able to buy a Pandigial E-Reader at a really good price (less than $100), I decided to go for it. With it, I can not only read e-books but also access the internet and android apps, though I must say I haven't quite figured out the whole android thing yet. Today I also explored some of the sites for free e-books and downloaded a few of them.

When it was time to download my first e-book from Overdrive, I used our library's Nook instructions and they worked well for me. As far as I can tell, they are still up to date and were easy to follow. I found Overdrive fairly easy to use and search for what I was looking for. I wish the selection of books was larger, but that is another issue altogether.

Now that I have had a chance to spend some time reading e-books, I can say that I do think they have their place for me personally. I recently went on vacation and it was great to be able to bring a few books along on the trip and not have it take up too much space. The only annoying part was having to shut it down on the airplane during takeoff and landings. Since my e-reader has a computer-like screen, I am not able to see it at all outside in the sun so it certainly will not replace real books for me. I can also see a huge benefit for people in certain professions who need to refer to textbooks for facts and information on a regular basis. Being able to carry this around with them in such a small package could be hugely beneficial, as long as they were able to access the data they required as easily as in a hard book. Perhaps it would be even easier if they could search for particular keywords.

I am not entirely sure how I feel about the whole controversy with libraries and e-books. I can understand how a publisher may not want to permit a library to lend one purchased copy of an e-book to multiple patrons at one time. However, I think restrictions on the number of times the e-book is able to be lent out is totally ridiculous. I know there is a whole debate about not comparing e-books to real print copy books at all (I read one of the articles posted on the CDLC page), but there is no restriction to the number of times we are able to lend a hard copy book, other than until it falls apart or gets destroyed. Coming from working at a printing company, I know that the cost of printing books is pretty significant and that publishers are reducing their expenses when it comes to digital books. (Though I don't know enough about the publishing industry - perhaps there are other costs involved) It seems like the publishers want to restrict libraries even more than on print copies. It doesn't make much sense to me, and I am interested to see how everything will be resolved in the years to come as I'm sure digital media will become more and more popular.