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.

Sony eReader vs. Kindle2

What is the difference between the Kindle2 and Sony Touch Edition?

1st thing that hit me about the Sony; to download a book, you have to connect a USB cable to a laptop or stand alone PC connected to the internet, even though they have AT&T wireless for browsing. Per their web site: USB Port required for Reader connection.

[Nook has wireless downloads; Barnes and Noble's Nook has an expected shipping date Jan 4.]

*Kindle2 downloads wirelessly

*Kindle2 does not have an expandable memory

*Sony eReader is compatible with Mac and PC

*Sony eReader is compatible with multiple eBook stores

See Sony web site below for more info:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644523779&N=4294954529

The Nook is coming!

We have ordered 2 Nooks from Barnes and Noble. Hopefully we'll be able to have them before the winter break. We are very excited about the new tech! We've also ordered a couple of Sony eReaders.

Differences between Nook & Kindle2

Nook has a few 1st in Tech features:

1st color touch screen for navigation

1st 3G & Wi-Fi-enables eReader [AT&T]

1st Android based eReader

Memory expansion, 16GB card up to 17,500 eBooks

[K1 has memory expansion, but not K2 or DX]

Synchronized note/annotations between devices

1st eReader with digital lending

Replaceable battery

[K1 has replaceable battery, but not K2 or DX]

Nook does not have Text-to-Speech or word document support

The Nook's screen size is a little smaller and weighs a bit more

Recharging for Nook [wireless off], is 10 days, K2 is 14 days

See Barnes and Noble link below for more info:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/

New Nursing Textbooks on Kindle DX

1st student checks out 2 nursing textbooks on the Kindle DX.
Much to her surprise, after checking out our popular Reserve papercopy of Fundamentals Success: A Course Review Applying Critical Thinking to Test Taking, 2008, we checked to see if it had been Kindlized. In about 5 minutes, she had the DX with the 1st textbook request loaded and ready to take home for 7 days. She was overwhelmed with joy. Our Circulation staff was delighted because we could do something so quickly for our students to help ease the tension of trying to study with limited funds.

Kem was so excited; she asked if we had anymore nursing textbooks on the Kindle DX. We had already purchased Text Success: Test-taking Techniques for Beginning Nursing Students, 2008. This title was transferred to her Kindle in the time it takes a phone to ring. This 2nd request was originally from our nursing program director. She had attended the NLN conference last week. The publishers, the professor noted, were very persistent about selling e-textbooks for $20 along with the hardcopy. They stated the e-book is good for 2 years.

This is good news all around. We hope to hear more encouraging stories about publishers and the Kindle/textbook format from teachers in other areas as the academic year progresses.