[WEB4LIB] Re: Predictions for the next...

[Julia Schult]

> > At 10:23 AM -0800 1/1/00, Thomas Dowling wrote:
> > >That notwithstanding, display technology will approach the resolution and
> > >contrast of readable print, making it more reasonable to ask patrons to view
> > >lower-demand documents electronically.  Currently, of course, the bulk of
> > >electronic publishing assumes the reader will print the document.

> >On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Eric Hellman wrote:
> > Not yet.

> Bob Rasmussen wrote:
> An interesting development on this: in PC Magazine a while back, they
> described some high-end laptops that had (or would have) a significantly
> higher dot (pixel) density; that is, more pixels in the same space. This seems
> to be targeted at readability.

At the most recent NYLA conference (November) some librarians gave a talk about
their libraries' experiences with eBooks in various forms and permutations.  At
least two of them said their patrons really enjoyed the eBook experience; that the
resolution, the ability to enlarge text, and backlighting made them preferable to a
paper book.

Granted, eBook readers are not everywhere (or anywhere near my town ;-) ) but they
do seem to have passed the comfort test for those who have used them.  People do
want them to be lighter, though, which is happening in the newer versions.

A trend that works against library use of them now is that the makers are actually
making it harder to buy a book from more than one vendor to use on a single
device.  Who wants a reader that only works on books from one specific source or
publisher?  Even worse, the newer versions only allow you to transfer the book onto
one reader; you cannot make a copy on a pc and then load it onto whichever reader a
patron is checking out.  *sigh*

(I'm not an expert on this, btw, my only contact is what I saw at NYLA and a few
articles.  I personally think the netLibrary model is going to work much better,
especially for academic libraries, but it would be nice if people could download
articles onto a reader or even into a laptop database of research articles.)

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu