Nov. 11 meeting recap: Ebooks

We had a better than average turn out for the meeting today. Thanks to everyone who attended – we had a really great conversation and the hour seemed to fly by. For those who could not be there, I thought I’d point out some of the things we discussed in case you’re interested in having a look.

The general topic of discussion for the meeting was ebooks. A couple of us brought in items to share:

We Don’t Read That Way from ACRLog, the blog for the Association of College and Research Libraries. This is a brief but interesting post about how faculty use ebooks versus print materials and how they access items based on their need. The article poses a lot of good questions for academic libraries and, as is usually the case, the reader comments are interesting too.

“It’s one thing, they tell us, to read for pleasure on a screen – but it’s quite another to read for understanding, for critique, for engaging in the scholarly conversation. And this isn’t a generational matter – some of the faculty I know who seem most committed to print are younger than forty.”

Dramatic Growth from Library Journal, 10/15/2011, Vol. 136 Issue 17, p32-34. This article reports on the “2011 Ebook Penetration & Use in U.S. Libraries Survey,” which indicated that electronic books (ebooks) had become widely popular in American libraries as of October 2011. Over 80% of public libraries were offering ebooks to their patrons, and the percentage was even higher for academic libraries. Several other statistics from the survey are also analyzed.

“…despite the ebook hype, and fear about the demise of libraries, the library experience is enriched by ebooks as another popular addition to collections already rich with various formats that keep users coming back.”

Finally, Christie introduced us to a website called Blurb, that allows users to create their own books including an option to make ebooks for iPhones and iPads.

Next FLIP meeting: Friday, Dec. 16. We hope to see you there!