Another way to borrow ebooks

As borrowing ebooks from libraries becomes easier and easier, publishers are growing nervous and librarians are raising questions about what is best for their users. Now that Amazon.com has made books for Kindle available for library borrowing, youth librarians have to make choices about the best formats to offer their patrons. Kindle (at least in its present incarnation) is obviously not going to take over the picture book market the way that i-Pad apps are doing. Kindle offers straightforward editions of stories and nonfiction books with limited graphics and photos. Will teens and tweens want to read their books this way? The N.Y. Times reports that many publishers are afraid adults will stop buying ebooks and start borrowing them instead. Young people are much less inclined to buy their books than adults are, of course, but with price not a factor will they learn to love borrowed ebooks or will they stick to paper products? Portability is always an issue with kids, which is why paperbacks are so much more popular than hardcover books, but do they consider ebook readers as portable as paperbacks? There is a durability to a paperback that inspires people to tuck them into the back pockets of jeans or stuff them into backpacks. Is the hard metal casing of a Kindle equally inviting? To many of us adults, the cost of a Kindle would make it impossible to treat casually, but teens are notoriously blase about costs they don't have to pay. Publishers and libraries are rushing to embrace new technology and offer the latest formats available in our libraries, but how much do we know about what we are doing? Perhaps its time for librarians to start reporting to their colleagues, through blogs and professional meetings about what is actually happening in libraries. We've done a great job of informing one another about the new titles and how kids are reacting to them. What about the new formats? Why isnt it just as important to report on that? Anyone who has tried lending Kindles to young people in school or public libraries is invited to respond and let us know what's going on. It's time to look beyond the stories to the packaging and to become a force in shaping how publishers offer their wares.

Ebooks to go in libraries?

School Library Journal's latest issue is filled with news about ebooks and the attention they are getting from librarians and teachers. They report on a conference on virtual books at which speakers talked about the opportunities and problems for librarians in providing ebook materials. One of the biggest obvious issues is the variety of formats for ebooks. Kindles are currently the most popular platform but the Nooks, iPad and other formats have their supporters. Librarians worry that if they go with the wrong format they will end with obsolete equipment and materials just as many libraries did with filmstrips and tape recorders in the past. Perhaps an even greater issue is the rights of libraries to provide ebooks to patrons who own their own device. The marketers have built their business plans on each user buying a device, which cuts libraries out of the picture. It's time for professional organizations like ALA to try to start a dialog with ebook producers to work out some reasonable way for libraries to circulate materials. On pattern that might work in schools is the model, also written up in SLJ this month, at Arizona State University. The library there is buying a supply of Kindles for students and will have a collection of YA materials available for each machine. This model could work in other school situations where authorized users are limited and easily identifiable, but it doesn't seem feasible for public libraries. We need to think about the future of ebooks in libraries for the next 20 years, because they are not going away.

More on multitasking

The issue of whether or not new media has caused a drastic drop in people's ability to concentrate has sparked continuing discussion. The most recent contribution in the N.Y. Times points to the advantages of being able to gather and share information quickly. Steven Johnson points out that most innovation comes from a shared social context--the coffee houses of the Enlightenment period or the college campuses of the 1990s. The new Kindle inovation of indicating the most popular phrases and ideas that people highlight as they read books enables readers to get a sense of how others are reacting to ideas. We all know the pleasures of coming across a pencilled note on the pages of a print book that suddenly gives us the feeling another human being has been struck by the same idea we had. Reading an e-book may soon offer a similar experience, only enlarging the experience as if thousands of people read the same copy of a book. That's something to look forward to, not to fear.

E-books with extras

The flow of e-books for children into the market continues unabated. The iPad has unleased a flood of creativity and publishers are offering not only facsimiles of printed books and illustrations, but also variations. Warren Buckleitner, writing in the N.Y. Times, discusses some of the new products that parents and librarians can c hoose from. These include a new presentation of Alice in Wonderland (condensed) in which with a shake of the e-reader a child can change the picture presentation. It's not only the iPad, the iPhone and the Kindle that offer interesting new ways for children to enjoy books. Other platforms will no doubt come up with other variations. Should libraries purchase these versions? That's hard to say. How many will remain accessible and desirable for more than a year or two? With very view guidelines in this area, librarians may want to turn to Friends of the Library or other philanthropic groups to provide some of these possibilities to children. As time winnows out the ones that have less appeal, libraries may consider using some of their precious budget funds to provide the winners. The important task at this point is to remain aware of possibilities.

Is this what we've been dreading?

The Kindle craze has swept some schools, and some librarians and teachers are predicting that textbooks and entertainment reading alike will be moving to electronic format. There are roomers that a new Kindle 3 will revolutionize reading by bringing graphics to the Kindle screen. Reactions to this have been mixed, as shown in this Publisher's Weekly blog and the College Humor video clip. It makes you laugh, but also makes you think about what might be gained and lost as more and more text moves into electronic format. Is this really what we want?

Paying for digital textbooks

Governor Schwarzenegger's announcement that California schools will soon be using open source digital textbooks for science and math--and perhaps other subjects--was a welcome one to many teachers and librarians. The process by which schools and libraries can move to providing this material instead of paper books is still not clear. Digital material needs equipment to make it usable and school boards as well as library boards are notoriously stingy about buying enough computers and especially maintaining them well. It's not unusual to see a cluster of computers in a classroom and library in which half of the machines are "temporarily" unusable. The new Kindle and other electronic reading devices seem ideally suited to textbook use, but how will those stand up to repeated use by students year after year. It's important to look at the quality and cost of our textbooks, but librarians and teachers ought to be equally concerned with the quality and cost of the machines that give access to them.