E-books have changed the publishing world as we know, but it is easy to overlook the impact that digital publishing has had on the library system. Two library systems alone —Toronto Public Library and King County Library System in Washington— have seen more than two million checkouts from OverDrive, the digital distributor for most libraries. Information Today brought this news to our attention in their article, “Ebooks in 2015: Trends and Forecasts Part 1.”
Proponents for e-readers are not united on their preferences. Since the original Kindle was released from Amazon, there have been fans of both the e-ink and the LCD versions of e-readers. E-ink e-readers proved to be a key platform in the early days, and they still have their champions. They seem to tug at the nostalgia strings for those who were reluctant to give up paper because of the similar appearance. I was one of those reluctant converts. I like the feel, look, and smell of my books. But in the world of traveling and convenience, it is much easier to grab my Kindle and not have to worry about which book to take on the plane. I might be different in that I use my Kindle and the Kindle application on my iPad almost equally. I like that regardless of which one I am using at the moment; it syncs to my last reading place. If I am going somewhere that will require some Internet connection for work or personal activities, the Kindle application provides the hybrid I need to prevent carrying two devices.
In October 2014, Amazon released another version of their e-readers, the Kindle Voyage. The customer base is there, but will it last? Consumers are very fickle creatures.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.
