There’s a lot to like about Amazon’s new digital reading device, the Kindle. It’s a lightweight, slickly designed handheld device with a crystal clear black and white electronic ink screen that is very easy to use right out the box. And the Kindle has three surefire selling points—title selection, pricing and Amazon’s nifty Whispernet wireless network—that give it an advantage over devices like the Sony Reader and the iLiad.
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The network signal (Kindle uses a cellphone network) was strong and every title in the Kindle bookstore offers a free sample chapter; just the ticket for an intrepid wireless device reviewer. Very quickly I downloaded sample chapters of Mark Harris’s The Southpaw; Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke and Buster Olney’s The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, just to check out the technology before buying…
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Preview 90,000 books
Amazon is supposed to have 90,000 books available for the Kindle and you can get a preview chapter for all these books. This seems like a powerful features for libraries. Librarians that deal with acquisitions have access to the first chapter of 90,000 books. This would seem helpful in making acquisition decisions.
I’m wondering how helpful
I’m wondering how helpful this would really? Many librarians that do acquisitions barely have time to read reviews of books, let alone get through the first chapter. Some libraries outsource acquisitions, so perhaps people in those organizations are able to do more thorough research into new acquisitions.