Taking a 'wait and see' stance on e-readers

I stand my statement that a wait-and-see approach is best right now. I didn't even go into the battle that is going on right now between libraries and e-book distributors about who owns the rights to the books. The distributors are maintaining that the libraries don't own the books even if they have paid for them. There's a lot of questions that are being presented and given the budget at the Marshall Public Library, we will continue to use our funds for print books, audiobooks (CDs and Playaways) and movies.

Please note: I am NOT saying that the library will never offer e-books. I am saying that if you don't own an e-reader, you can still read print books and that there are too many variables for the library to commit funds at this time.

The days of "real" books are not yet at an end.

In the first place, E-readers are still at a price point a lot of people cannot afford. True, you can read books on other devices, but some of them are so small that reading on them is more a burden than a pleasure.

In the second place, there are a lot of people who prefer the touch and feel of the actual book in their hands. I fall into that category, but can no longer comfortably hold a book.

While it's true e-readers have loan capabilities, they are limited, and in the case of Nook, can only be done once. Every new technology has its faults. :)

When libraries do finally make the leap to e-readers, I hope they don't focus on just one of the many available. Although Kindle is arguably a little better known, Consumer Reports favors the Nook and that's why I bought that one. The paging is much better, in my opinion, and I spent a fair amount of time looking at the options.

The best of any e-reader is that it allows you to carry thousands of books at once. Gone are the days when rapid readers like me had to carry two or three books along on a vacation or business trip. That alone is worth the price, at least to me, but I can see where a typical family of four, for example, is at a considerable disadvantage. That's a lot of money to spend in today's economy, and doesn't include the cost of the books themselves, when the public library has the same books for free.

CPP - You're missing my point, I think.

1) Assume the least cost for a basic e-reader is roughly $100. A family of two adults and two children would therefore spend $400 minimum.

2) Technological expertise is much greater supply than you imagine. My 8-year-old granddaughter had no trouble operating my Nook and the 3-year-old didn't find it much of a challenge, either.

3) You can loan your books to others with the same e-reader (not sure if it works from Nook to Kindle, for example), but you can only do that ONCE.

So let's take this family of four and have each one buy a book and loan it to ONE of the others. Or they could each buy a book and just pass the e-reader around to each of the others. Except for books in the public domain, and there are thousands of these, each book purchased costs money, so any new publications are not free. You can read all the Jane Austen you want for nothing, but John Grisham is going to cost you.

Now don't get me wrong - I love my e-reader. It is definitely the wave of the future. But until e-readers are as available (and free) as a library card, we will still need our libraries for many years to come.

You can check out every single book in the library, for years on end, and not spend even one thin dime. No matter how you slice and dice it, that is absolutely the best deal. Look at the light bulb - we couldn't live without them - but the candle isn't dead. Just ask Yankee Candle.