David Rothman writes “An upbeat article on e-books for schools and libraries (subscribers only) appears in the Wall Street Journal today. At the same time the Journal levels with readers about the tiny size of the whole e-book market, somewhere over $10 million in 2003.
Among other things the Journal mentions the Cleveland library system’s promising experiment wtih e-books, discussed here earlier. Keep in mind that the WSJ is writing about library experiments without a supporting infrastructure fully in place.
Key info about past e-book usage: “Some say consumers found it too confusing to download necessary software onto the various e-book readers” (read in effect “the Tower of eBabel”–format-related problems that still continue even though the software is better).
Imagine what the results could be with volunteers to hold the hands of library users–and with standardized formats for e-books and less bothersome DRM.
Tip: See if Mobipocket is an option for readers. Runs much better on PDAs than Adobe and Palm do. Try out e-books on Palm and Pocket PC PDAs before committing to any library system. Check file sizes and downloading times, as well as how the books display. Many and perhaps most of a library’s recreational e-book users will read on handhelds.
E-Audio Books
E-Books, old boring news. E-Audio Books now thats exciting.