Have you considered purchasing an Amazon Kindle or another electronic book reader? I purchased a first-generation Kindle soon after they became available. Since I am a librarian, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the electronic reading experience, but now I do nearly all of my reading on the Kindle. Here are a few Kindle facts:
When you purchase a Kindle book, it is downloaded wirelessly to your Kindle. The wireless transmission is included in the price of the book and takes about a minute.
Most new books cost $9.99 as compared to purchasing a $24.95 hardback available in the bookstore. The Kindle book eventually drops in price as the book becomes available in paperback. Free samples are available for Kindle books, and many classic books are available free-of-charge.
The Kindle 2 will hold about 1500 books. After you read a book, you can delete it from your Kindle list but it is still available for you to download should you wish to read it again. You manage your list of books from the Amazon website. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are available in Kindle format. I subscribed to the New York Times for a while and loved reading it while I sipped coffee in the morning.
Reading on the Kindle is not like reading on a computer screen. The screen is flat and looks much like the page of a book. I especially enjoy being able to adjust the font and I find that if I adjust the margins, I can read faster on my Kindle. The Kindle also has a text to speech feature, but the computerized voice is not the quality of most books on cd.
You cannot “loan” a Kindle book to a friend, but a family can have several Kindles tied to the same Amazon account and share the books. You can also read your Kindle books on your iPhone or your PC using free software from Amazon.
The library has two new Kindles. These are currently being tested by faculty, and 23 faculty members signed up to try the Kindle! The Teen Reads Winterim Class will be using the Kindles during Winterim.
The Kindle is wonderful for traveling, and it also eliminates the need to purchase additional bookshelves for your home. The one drawback to the Kindle is that it is so easy to purchase new books—just a click of a button—and you don’t think about it until your credit card bill arrives!!
