A techno book?

As part of my Sunday morning ritual of reading the Strib, I always make a point of checking out the Target ad (whether I need anything or not.) The gift/technology item that really surprised me was the newest in book technology. It was a Sony Digital Reader "book" for $299.99. ( image courtesy of www.gizmosforgeeks.com)


Basically, it stores up to 160 books, includes an MP3 player, and eradicates the need to print books on paper. You upload the book(s) of your choosing, lets say all seven Harry Potter books, and then you have an easy, digital, portable way of carrying around all seven books to read. (Because who would want to wait until you get home to grab the next book in the series to begin reading? Not those in the instant gratification world!)

It seems like a terrific idea for college students--$300 for the gadget and another $10 to download the book you need for your undergrad? The benefit to this is not having to go to the bookstore, buy the book for $120 that someone else has highlighted, and then sell it back at the end of the term for $30. To me it seems like a plus for the college group, especially when you do the same thing 2-3 times a year with 4-5 books for a course. I know this is designed to be one of those overpriced gadgets you are supposed to buy for the person who you don't know what to buy for, but who really is the market for this? Is it that difficult to carry one book around, let alone needing to carry 160 to choose from?

But are books printed on paper that bad? If as a society we transition from books as we know them now to digital books, will we ultimately lose some form of culture in the end? Will candle stores begin marketing scented candles modeled after the smell of old books, once we've switched over to digital books? I'm interested to know how all the librarians/media specialists/English teachers feel about this.

The Base Line

After learning about databases last week, I am hopeful that they will continue to be used for all research applications. I used to be afraid, very afraid, of databases after many a search turned up to not have useful information for me.

The coolest database, that we have access to at the high school, is the decades site. You can even research newspaper headlines from the paper printed on your birthday! It would make research that much easier for students who are given the task to discover what happened on the day they were born. (As if that wasn't monumental enough!)

And even though we are learning all these tricks to make our searches that much more precise, I still find myself wanting more in terms of results after a search. I realize that there is no search engine that can read my mind and find exactly what I am looking for, but perhaps someday there will be. It would be nice to type something in (such as a recipe for red velvet cake, for example) and not have to filter through all the other gobbeltygook that comes along with the search results (ex: red cake, velvet cake, red velvet, etc.) even when you do use quotation marks to keep things together.

I do have hope, though, after learning about databases that one day searching will be easier and more thorough. Thank you for instilling that hope in me!

Thing 5

I have always been a fan of the public library system, even though I worked at one for only 10 days (one can only sort and shelve books for so much time before it becomes the bane to your existence.)

I am a proud card carrying member of the Carver County Library system, and enjoy looking for books on their website. You can see a book advertised on a TV show (such as Studs Terkel who was featured on the CBS Sunday Morning Show last week), hop on your computer in your jammies as you're watching TV, and request the book to be held for you at your local library. The lazy person in me likes that I can have the book delivered to the library in Watertown, and I don't need to drive all the way to Waconia, Chaska, or Norwood/Young America to pick it up.

Another nifty thing about libraries today is the self check-out system. While the system at the grocery store or Home Depot has a tendency to get stuck and stop working, the library one is very easy to use, and great when there's a line or no librarian to be found. Plus, on those days where one may be feeling a bit anti-social, you can visit the library and get your book without actually speaking to anyone.

What I would change about libraries is to make the online books a bit more interesting. It's great to have access to professional journals, but it would be nice to find a Harry Potter book on there when the wait time is several weeks or months otherwise. I also wish it were easier to use some of the online databases. I realize there is a specific method to accessing the information you need, but I don't want to search through everything. And I guess part of me is too afraid to ask the librarians for help. (They can be kind of scary!)