[WEB4LIB] RE: why ebooks and when?

[Fazia Begum Rizvi]

At 12:21 PM -0700 8/28/01, Blake Carver wrote:
>At 12:03 PM 8/28/01 -0700, Masters, Gary E wrote:
>>E books remain the best way for a library to get books to its 
>>clients on the web - if the copyright issue can be solved.
>
>Great point.
>BUT, what compelling reasons do we as consumers have to buy an 
>eBook. So maybe "we" as librarians can see some reasons... space 
>savings, time, money, probably more, but "we" as the average 
>consumer needs a compelling reason to "uprgade" to eBooks. Just look 
>at the marketing of eBooks:

Actually, those would be the same compelling reasons to me as a 
consumer. I don't want to read fiction on those things - I like my 
paperbacks just fine and I rather like having tons of hardback 
fiction decorate my bookshelves at home. BUT I would *love* to get 
that two-ton "Learn Javascript in 14 Days" tome as an e-book. It 
would have been so much easier on my aching back when I was in 
college if all my textbooks had been available as e-books! It's 
frustrating to have all that space in my home office's bookshelves 
taken up by huge manuals and guides that'll be defunct in two or 
three years - rather than freeing up that space for my crafts. And 
the cost of those ... if I could get them cheaper as an e-book, that 
would be even better.


But as a consumer, I've been seeing them market fiction only - and 
I'm not interested.


-Faz

Fazia Begum Rizvi
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Southwest Texas State University
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