In case you haven’t heard, Amazon unveiled their new E-Book reader–the “Kindle”–today.
Don’t just brush this off as more hype. This launch is huge. So here’s what you do:
1) Watch the video to see exactly what it is–because your patrons are about to ask why the library doesn’t do this.
2) Does your library have popular E-Books? If not, be prepared to defend yourself. Or better yet, sign up for some right away. Hundreds of libraries do have them. You can check here, for example, to see which libraries carry the OverDrive brand of downloadable E-Books–and who owns which titles, for that matter. Many libraries also carry OCLC’s netLibrary E-Books as well.
3) If you do have E-Books, here’s what you say:
Yes, Amazon’s Kindle is very cool, but it costs $400, plus $10 a book.
But if you’d like to try E-Books for free, all you need is a computer, an Internet connection and your library card and you can read E-Books for nothing.
Let me show you how….
Libraries have been working to get E-Books to patrons for years, and it was quite a struggle because publishers were worried that they would be “Napsterized.” This story is better told elsewhere. But now many libraries have downloadable digital content.
Audiobooks have been the star format so far, but the E-Book has come into its time–finally. We need to get past the argument that people won’t read on a screen. People DO read on screens all the time, and if your library has only signed up for audiobooks so far, now is the time to think about E-Books, if only so that your director can defend herself against the stereotype that libraries are old fashioned and out-of-date. Even if you think you’re just doing this for good PR, you’ll be surprised at how many patrons will read Harlequin romances and bestsellers and just about anything on their screens.
Give it a chance, if only to encourage reading among those who can’t afford to buy all their reading material. And here’s the best argument of all:
Which demographic cohort is most comfortable with reading on a screen?
Which demographic cohort are we trying to encourage to read more?
Enough said.
Get some E-Books and ride this wave of publicity. Thanks, Amazon.
P. S. The Kindle works on a closed system, which means it will only load content through Amazon. But…for those patrons who really do want a separate reader, the new Sony reader will work for libraries once it works through Adobe to adopt the IDPF standard. Can’t wait.
P. P. S. Yes, it’s all very confusing, and there are fights over standards, but remember…the same thing happened in the movie arena. DVDs didn’t just happen, and libraries helped introduce customers to the videocassette formats in the beginning.
But this is READING. We need to do it again.
Off the soapbox now. Comments welcome.
