[WEB4LIB] RE: why ebooks and when?

[RICHARD EDWARDS]

I find it less and less interesting to be carrying around all these different electronic devices (cell phone, pager, palm pilot, ebook reader, etc.). 

I wonder if the answer to why ebooks and when doesn't lie in the proliferation of a single type of device that does multiple tasks, one of which is ebooks. 

For example, my PocketPC (Compaq iPaq), has Microsoft's eBook Reader (where I carry some Hans Christian Andersen and the manual to some software I use often) but it also has my schedule, my Excel spreadsheets, my Word documents, and with the aircard (which is my next addition) the Windows CE version of Internet Explorer which I have on it will allow me to browse the web and check email, all from a single device. It also has an MP3 player and headphone jack (as well as a speaker) for my music and an image viewer (so I can carry photos of my son and family).

When I don't have to pay for a separate device nor carry it around, and when the pocket device I do carry is able to display better for reading, THEN I'll read more eBooks (and also have the options to listen to my MP3 music or view video no doubt).

joyfully,

Rich


Rich Edwards
Principal Library Information Specialist 
Innovative Coordinator
Washington State Library
Olympia, WA
redwards at statelib.wa.gov 
(360)704-7135

"You will be surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly disagreeable possesses either an instructive or an amusing side." Ella Wheeler Wilcox in "The Heart of the New Thought" 1902.