Wednesday, May 11, 2011

More on eReaders

First of all, what is the official way to spell this? eBook? E-Book? E-ink? E-ARC? The Encyclopedia Britannica goes with e-book. Yesterday, I was able to loan my electronic Nook copy of The Harry Potter Cookbook to a student who had an iPhone. Worked like magic! Today, I was able to download Adobe Digital Editions to the school computer, so that I can now help students check out books from The Ohio eBook (sic) Project. It was necessary to follow the "trouble with installation" instructions; e-mail me if you are still stuck. Last night, instead of reading, I worked with the iPad to get the Overdrive Media Consol necessary to read my Ohio eBook Project books on that. The iPad also has the Nook and Kindle apps, and a student told me about iBooks, which is helpful because so many students have an iPod touch. This is about as many platforms as my brain can handle right now. My job this morning is to put together an instruction sheet for getting e-reading apps on various devices; instructions for downloading necessary software for Ohio eBook; and a list of free books that might interest students. As strange as it sounds, and with apologies to authors everywhere, I rarely pay money for books of my own. Sure, I spend thousands on books for the library, but spending $10.00 for a digital copy of Throne of Fire? Not going to happen. 98% of what I read is checked out of the library. If I weren't reading the newest middle grade and young adult fiction, I would read a lot of older titles, so getting free books for the various platforms was a thrill for me. Oooh! Grace Livingston Hill! Agatha Christie! E. Nesbit! However, most students want new books. This is going to be the balancing act. I am hoping that students who are avid enough readers that they have some sort of e-reader will be open to exploring some more vintage fiction. I'll post a list my recommended Classics in a bit.

4 comments:

  1. I love it E-ARC. At an iPad training yesterday the question cam up about lending books. How as readers are we going to do this? Not just in the library, but with friends. Trade Books or Trade Device?

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  2. FWIW (ha, for what it's worth), the AP Stylebook, the Bible of journalism, except when it's ignored, which is frequently, recently updated its text and has reformatted "website" and "email."

    It's website, not web site, not web-site.

    And now email, no hyphen.

    Makes me think ebook would be how AP would spell it. Though, since I'm lacking a new AP Stylebook (mine is from the mid-1980s), I've no idea if they addressed the word ebook.

    Your platforms list and techno-speak made my head hurt this morning! :-)

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  3. Wrote a Kindle grant for this year - haven't heard yet. Also waiting to hear if I'll even be librarian here next year. Bad budget times in Oregon...Should be finding out in the next couple days. think good thoughts!

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  4. I made some comments the other day but they must have disappeared in the Great Meltdown. Anyway, I took your advice and downloaded The Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit. Now my question to you is--will you use the e-reader during the 48 Book challenge?

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