Ebooks are slowly becoming the future of reading culture in New Zealand especially since the introduction of 3 popular ereaders has emerged. These include the Kobo which is produced by Whitcoulls, the Kindle for Amazon and the iPad by Apple.
One of the questions that we as librarians are asking is how will this affect our practice and career in the information service in the near future? There are many other questions we are asking ourselves and of the technology including how is it successfully going to be implemented into libraries? Whilst researching this very topic for a #Info task I came across an article about a public library in Canada providing an eBook service where they loan out the ereader device to their patrons with books already preloaded onto it. Just like a book in the collection the patron of the library would only have access to the device for a limited time before having to return it just like you would a physical book otherwise the customer would be accruing hefty fines. If you would like to read more about west Vancouver library and the services they offer check out the full article.
The library in Canada is just one example of a library embracing this latest technological trend. Here in New Zealand there is a lot of discussion surrounding the issue if our libraries should have eBooks or not at all. In my own opinion I think if we want our libraries to get with the times and keep up with the new trends is to incorporate eBooks in a way that best suits the information service. Libraries should do trial runs with various programmes and learn about ways of issuing and keeping track of the content / material. In Taylor's blog he raises advantages and disadvantages of incorporating eBooks into libraries. One problem that he discussed that stood out to me was when a borrower has a particular eBook out how does another person ‘get it out’? Can multiple patrons have the same eBook out at the same time or is it like a physical object and only one person can use there product at one time.
From reading this I came to the conclusion that it is important to conduct your own trials to see what is going to best suit your library when it comes to loaning out eBooks and how you are going to manage them. This new technology is here to stay and us as librarians should embrace it with open arms fully understanding that we will have to go through trials and various strategies to find the best case for our own information environment.
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