01-29-2013, 03:26 AM
I use a mix of Kindle and print books. I do believe ereaders will be the future of "print" media, but it's off to a bit of a slow start. Reasons?
1) Cost of ebooks -- publishers are trying to redefine their roles in the brave new world, and are unwilling to give up any revenue. It offends me to be asked to pay nearly the same for an ebook as for print.
2) Hawai'i's public library ebook collection is small and behind the times, plus the online search engine really is quite bad -- unless you know the name of a book and/or author, you might as well be in a library where nothing is shelved properly. They need to get a clue from Amazon about how to organize their search engine. The publishers latest tactics of selling ebooks to a library, but having them "expire" after a number of loans is purely greedy. Why buy an ebook when they buy the paper and can loan it until it falls apart?
3)ebook readers will, at some point, be irrelevant as ipads and their cousins will take over that role. Wouldn't spend top $$ for an ebook reader.
That said, I'm happy with my Kindle -- love to be able to travel without a suitcase full of books! Would go with Kindle as opposed to Nook as I think Amazon will be around a lot longer than other book sellers.
No trouble with hardware in our damp Puna environment in well-over a year.
Real future of ebooks ought to be schools -- costs of purchasing hard-copy text books should go the way of the dinosaurs!
My $.02 worth...
Jane
1) Cost of ebooks -- publishers are trying to redefine their roles in the brave new world, and are unwilling to give up any revenue. It offends me to be asked to pay nearly the same for an ebook as for print.
2) Hawai'i's public library ebook collection is small and behind the times, plus the online search engine really is quite bad -- unless you know the name of a book and/or author, you might as well be in a library where nothing is shelved properly. They need to get a clue from Amazon about how to organize their search engine. The publishers latest tactics of selling ebooks to a library, but having them "expire" after a number of loans is purely greedy. Why buy an ebook when they buy the paper and can loan it until it falls apart?
3)ebook readers will, at some point, be irrelevant as ipads and their cousins will take over that role. Wouldn't spend top $$ for an ebook reader.
That said, I'm happy with my Kindle -- love to be able to travel without a suitcase full of books! Would go with Kindle as opposed to Nook as I think Amazon will be around a lot longer than other book sellers.
No trouble with hardware in our damp Puna environment in well-over a year.
Real future of ebooks ought to be schools -- costs of purchasing hard-copy text books should go the way of the dinosaurs!
My $.02 worth...
Jane