Yet another kind of e-book

Publishers are becoming very creative in devising new formats for the products formerly known as books. The latest version reported in the NY Times is being called a "vook" Unlike the standard e-books we've seen on Kindle or Sony readers, this version integrates video clips with the text. The reader can read the book on a printed page and then go to a computer to watch the interspersed videos, or the book can be read entirely online or listened to in an audio version. The key feature is to have some of the scenes presented as video pictures rather than text. It seems likely the next step toward this vision might be on a mobile phone which already has facility to show both text and video. Jumping back and forth between media sounds awkward to a traditional reader, but we have learned to do that when reading newspapers online, so perhaps we could adjust to doing it with books too. No one can predict where this will all lead, but librarians are going to be hard pressed to keep up with the ever-changing media formats patrons might want--and young patrons will probably be among the most eager.