iPads Have Arrived!

There will be a drawing for 1st check out, April 14th, 12:30 pm, during National Library Week, here at Palm Beach State, LLRC, floor 2. Three lucky patrons will be the first to check out our iPads.

April 3rd iPad arrives!

Did you pre-order your iPad?

We did! We hope to receive our shipment Saturday April 3rd or Monday, April 5th. There is a limit of 2 in the pre-order and then the rest will arrive hopefully in May.

We will be giving demonstrations on all our digital e-readers during National Library Week, in April. The theme this year is "Communities Thrive @ your library". What a wonderful time to introduce the iPad, Kindle, Nook and Sony Touch e-readers to patrons.

This will be an exciting time at Palm Beach State College:]

iPad vs. Kindle DX "itis" and Education

There are so many blogs on iPad vs. Kindle DX, that this will be more about the 'education' side rather than personal use and preferences. We don't have an iPad to physically compare yet, so we will go with the stats that Apple has provided through the media.

There are several good blogs out there, but with our new Windows 7 installation, I'm not able to copy/paste or type these long links correctly at this time. Hopefully they will load to the right of the blog on the 1st page. The various blogs are rather good reading if you are a library/college institution and trying to decide; "Yes, to e-readers, but which one is best for our students".

Basically if you have a Kindle DX with 4GB memory for $489 and an iPad with 16GB memory at $499, it's a no-brainer...and you get all that other techno stuff with the iPad.....right? Yup! Other than this, the pros & cons are split. The main 2 comments concerning drawbacks with the iPad are the battery power; 10 hrs with iPad and also wireless charges. Kindle DX, on the plus side has 7 days with the wireless on and no wireless fee.

The power issue might not make a difference in student loans, as we'll have power cables with their check-out. I don't see a downside there, as we have laptops we loan for 3 hours with about 2 hour battery power; check out includes a power cable. We are presently discussing the iPad loan time for a 3hour check-out, not a 7 day like the Kindles/Sony/Nook.

Adding a monthly wireless service fee from AT&T on each unit is a minus for iPad for library budgets. The Kindle and Nook are free wireless. As you read the mainstream blogs, the other comments center on E-ink vs. LED backlit.

The iPad will be a big hit with students and teachers for e-textbooks; color pictures, interactive, charts, diagrams; as e-textbook publishers will be able to add video, like having a CD-ROM without the disc. Sounds very user friendly for education:] On the other side, if you are a student that reads endlessly for class, the Kindle might be easier on your eyes.

Looks like the field is wide open to new models next year. Right now our popular e-readers are the K1 and K2, 6" size for fiction and non-fiction titles. We have many teachers with a required reading list for students. If the hardback copies are all checked out, we are able to purchase many of these titles for our e-readers. The students have been very receptive to using the 6" Kindle and 9.7" Kindle DX for textbooks, [same size as iPad].

Also, here are a few patrons' comments comparing the Kindle with the Sony Touch:

Sony seems to have a glare and the ink is gray compared to the Kindle's bold black text...this is a very important area; eye strain on readers. We have registered our Nooks, and found this to be a very frustrating process using their 'touch screen keypad'. If you are use to "touch" phone technology, you'll be ok. We'll have to just wait to see how innovative the iPad is and their improved iTouch technology. Some techno blogs have said iPad improved their iTouch technology and will not have the problems some people have complained about. We have not loaded any books on our Nook with their 'touch' keypad. More on that later.

We'll have more comments soon from students, faculty and staff comparing the Kindle, Sony-Touch and Nook for student use. This April, we'll have most of our e-readers loaned out for the 2010 Read Together Palm Beach County Campaign.

http://www.literacypbc.org/ [still hand typing http site] then click blue link for "read together".

The five books that are being voted on now are:

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, The Things They Carried, Run, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Book Thief. We have loaded these on a few e-readers for voting and will purchase the winning title for the "read together", hopefully, for all our e-readers to enjoy.

We have found that students request a particular e-reader, depending on why they need it. I can see libraries having a variety of these fascinating digital e-readers to compliment their hardback/paperback collection and textbooks on reserve.

Happy E-reading:]

Kindle or-iPad ? Kindle or iPad ?

iPad or Kindle


See the link below for a front page local newspaper story, about the iPad, including Palm Beach State College. [mixed reviews]


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/south-floridians-greet-ipad-with-mixed-reviews-198213.html


[http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/ for picture above]

Sony eReader good, bad, & ugly?

3rd day of exploring our new Sony Touch edition

The Sony Touch feels heavier than the Kindle, 1st generation.

I changed the 'orientation' to landscape and this is much more comfortable for reading; distributing the weight between both hands. Landscape mode still gives me easy page turning on the left side of the unit.

Finding and opening a book is easy, but turning the pages, by 'whisking' the index finger is very frustrating, and resulted in using the page turning buttons on side. Sometimes in other areas I find the stylus is very handy, as the "touch" & "tap" is not very productive with fingernails or fingertips.

It's nice to 'touch' books on the screen, then from the list choosing a previously opened book, bringing me to the last page read, rather than the Kindle way. The Kindle, when turning it on, opens in the last book and page read. This is ok, if you're not reading 5 different Kindle books at a time. [A very minor thing!]

As far as lending the Sony to students, we find that this will be great for the library. Why? Because our staff has to download ALL e-books to the unit via the PC using a USB cable, no wireless; giving us more control over what we purchase on the units. This is more time consuming, but more organized. This can get very messy with over 40 Kindles.

The Kindle has a wireless download and the purchase comes via "click to purchase" through our Amazon account for all registered Kindles. With the Kindle we receive between 1 and 6 copies of each book we purchase. Example: The Lost Symbol-$9.60 gave us 4 copies. With Sony, we receive only the one item.

The Sony has been checked out more than 'in-house'. We have not played with it since we returned to school for the spring term. Most patrons are enjoying downloading free e-books. They seem to be very comfortable with using the USB cable and browsing.

Presently, I like the Kindle more, for ease of use. Some tell me I like the Kindles better, because it was our 1st digital e-reader and we've been experimenting with them since May 2008. We are awaiting the Nook to arrive the end of January. This will be another digital e-reader that will be very popular with students, staff and faculty.

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