Ebooks: Some Concerns and Surprises

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portal: Libraries and the Academy 1.1 (2001) 71-75 Many librarians believe that the publication of Stephen King's Riding the Bullet will be a turning point in the history of libraries. Until its publication, electronic books represented an alternative to paper-based books, not a replacement for them. But the success of King's ebook-only novella demonstrated that a title could be a bestseller without the author ever putting ink to paper, and many more ebook-only titles are in the works. Should libraries further embrace the digital world by providing access to ebook content or continue to focus their often scarce resources on their more traditional collections? Many of those libraries that wish to include ebooks in their collections are hesitating, in part because of a number of assumptions concerning the reactions of patrons to this new technology. For instance, there is a general assumption that patrons would be dissatisfied with the low resolution of the ebook readers and the lack of color and pictures. Or, the fragile nature of the reader apparatus would lead to many damaged devices. Or, when given the option, people simply would rather read from the traditional ink-on-paper format than on the small screen of an ebook reader. Several libraries in the Rochester, New York, area were provided the opportunity to test these assumptions and discovered that, in many cases, these assumptions were not supported by the results. On October 1, 1999 the cooperating agencies of the Monroe County Library System, Monroe 2 Board of Cooperative Education Services School Library System, and the Rochester Regional Library Council (all located in the Rochester, New York, region) were awarded a Library Services and Technology Act grant to study electronic books. One of the grant's main goals is to analyze the feasibility of using ebooks in academic, school and public libraries. After outlining the expectations and obligations, a call was made for volunteer libraries to act as field testers. From the large pool of volunteers, six libraries were chosen. The project team chose the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester to represent the academic libraries. They selected the public [End Page 71] libraries from the Town of Gates, a heavily blue-collar suburb of Rochester, and the Village of Fairport with a predominately white-collar patron-base, to represent the Monroe County Library System. The "rural-suburban" Spencerport High School and Jefferson Middle School, a science- and technology-focused institution located in the Rochester City School District, were chosen to represent the school libraries. The project's expert panel was comprised of the project director, a representative from each field-test library, an acquisitions librarian, and an automation specialist. Together, they oversaw the grant's objectives and developed the following field-test procedures: At the start of the grant in the fall of 1999, there were only two portable, dedicated electronic book readers on the market: NuvoMedia's Rocket eBook and the SoftBook Reader by SoftBook Inc. The Rocket weighs 22 ounces, has a monochrome screen of 4.5" x 3", and has the capacity to hold approximately 3,200 pages. In order to download ebook titles, the Rocket requires Internet access, an IBM-compatible or Macintosh computer, and a serial port. Rocket eBook titles can only be purchased over the Internet from Barnesand noble.com and Powells.com. The SoftBook Reader can download titles directly through an analog phone line, using the built-in 33.6 kbps...

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