Free E-BOOKS-so many sites!

Now that we have 4 different models of eReaders, patrons have asked us, besides purchasing books, where do we find FREE ebooks.

Gutenberg Project, we have used for the Kindle, as their ebooks are already formated for the Kindle. They have over 30,000 free ebooks.
www.gutenberg.org/

Gutenberg Project, updates nightly with newly added or updated ebooks


ManyBooks web site is very popular; they have 25,534 free ebooks.
http://manybooks.net/

In the ManyBooks website, there is an option to register but it's not neccessary. If you choose to register, they will keep track of the books you've read or want to read. The site also has RSS bookshelf feeds.

Both of these sites are easy to navigate and are fun to browse.

New eBooks Purchased December 2009

WE have been very busy purchasing new eBooks!

We have purchased many eBooks for our K1, K2 and DX Kindles.

The titles range from new fiction, Christmas stories to new textbooks for our new BAS program.

Here is a list of some of the new eBooks for December:

The Purpose of Christmas

The Christmas Sweater

I, Alex Cross

The Scoop by Fern Michaels

Breaking the Rules by Barbara Taylor Bradford

Rainwater by Sandra Brown

Southern Lights, a novel by Danielle Steel

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer [4th book in Twilight Saga]

Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The Year of the Flood, a novel by Margaret Atwood

What the Dogs saw: and other Adventures

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Customer Service Skills for Success

Essentials of Corporate Finance

Wiley Pathways Disaster Response and Recovery

Wiley Pathways Technology in Emergency Management

Creating and Implementing Your Plan: A work for Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Stones into Schools, by Greg Mortenson [author of Three Cups of Tea]

Human Resource Management by Patrick Wright

Sony Touch is here!

We are so excited.

The delivery of the new Sony Touch Edition e-Readers arrived this afternoon. A red metallic case with red matching vinyl cover-WOW!

Waiting to play with them is difficult, as we have to charge them for 4 hours. It's hard to wait!

The directions said to charge for at least 5 minutes before we can calibrate the screen with the stylet. The stylet is a cute little stylus incased in the upper right hand corner of the e-reader. [very convenient, but hope it stays with the unit]

5 minutes of charging and we're calibrating...that was easy! [Where's my Easy Button?]

There is probably about 5 minutes to play before the screen warns me the battery is low.

It's already loaded with 11 books; excerpts in several different languages; 2 songs and 3 pictures. "Warning -battery is low". [That time went fast.] Time to recharge for 5 minutes.

Back to the fun!

The orientation page came up, so I pressed the sreen, now I have a 'landscape' view and like it much better than 'portrait'. With this change, I can still use my left hand to press the buttons if needed. It's nice to just 'whisk' my index finger or thumb to 'turn' the page. Now I have to figure out how to put the orientation back to portrait. "Research time"

We've pretty much explored it all for now. Guess we better continue the charging process.

Kindle, Nook, Sony and other E-Readers to take off in 2010?

2010 the year of the eReader?

Several times a week, this past month, many patrons from our local community, faculty, students and staff, from our college, have stopped by our circulation desk and asked to see each of our Kindle models; K1, K2 and DX. Many are deciding what to purchase for holiday gift giving. Some want to compare the Kindle with the Sony eReader and the Nook.

Questions many are comptemplating for library or personal purchase:
Is the price right?
Are they easy to use?
Is the technology improving?
Is Google a threat?
[they digitized public-domain books that produced thousands of free literary classics.]

Aren't tech gadgets cool, fun?
Is reading always good for you?

Below see the link for reasons PC World feels eReaders will take off in 2010 and answers to the questions above:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/183192/kindle_nook_and_other_ereaders_to_take_off_in_2010.html
Thank you Jeff Bertolucci for a very informative report; PC World Nov 25, 2009 5:07 pm issue

E-Reader Or Netbook? Opposing viewpoint

This seems to be the question we see in many techie magazines and blogs lately.

See the link below for a very interesting discussion

http://www.knowprose.com/taxonomy/term/835

Questions about Kindles:

Thank you Matthew Haggard from Dudley, MA, for your interest in our Kindles and Beyond eReader project. Matthew is an Instructional Services/Reference Librarian at Nichols College. It is good to hear from librarians from all over the country and their great interest and enthusiasm regarding eReaders for students.

Matthew wanted to know how we manage the eBooks in terms of purchasing; regularly as we would print items, or on a "requested" basis. We usually purchase titles on request from faculty, staff and students.

The next big purchase will be e-Textbooks for our DX Kindles for students in our new BAS program that started this fall. We tried this out with our nursing program and it has been very successful.

As we try the newer eReaders we are facinated with all the things they can do for us. We are still researching and developing our policies and procedures for our eReaders.

We are anxiously awaiting the delivery of the Nook and Sony eReaders. The Sony should be here in 2 weeks. The shipping date for the Nook is Jan. 4th. It will be a welcome surprise when we get back from our Winter break to see how the students respond to the different units.