I have two books I finished this week, Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian, and just this evening on the train coming home, Victor Pelevin’s Helmet of Horror. But I’ve not quite got my thoughts gathered for either one of them though I enjoyed both. Tomorrow being Friday there definitely won’t be any thoughts gathered.
So this evening I figure I will just point you to an article about Library Journal’s Second Annual Ebook Survey. Some of the numbers are astonishing. Take for instance, 76% of public libraries surveyed said that ebooks have brought new users to the library. Academic libraries are included in the survey but most of the action is happening at public libraries. The amount spent on ebooks however, is more at academic libraries. I imagine this is due to the kinds of ebooks academic libraries provide in comparison to public libraries.
Still it is an interesting survey with some big changes evident in just one year. It will be interesting to follow it over the next several years to see where this whole ebooks and libraries thing goes.
I work in an academic library and eBook acquisitions are far out numbering traditional book purchases, and that is what students seem to prefer as well. I was very anti-eBooks, but have changed my tune as now I so prefer eBooks for ease and being able to carry my library with me. If I could afford to transfer all of my paper books to eBooks, I would in a heartbeat. JMO
Stefanie, on a separate note, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to comment about our loss of our cat Libby. It’s still so worth our sadness, when it’s time to say goodbye, for all the nice memories:)
thanks again.
Oh boy, I began Marguerite Yourcenar and then she got sort of buried in the week. I’m reading at a snail’s pace because the French is complicated, but I do want to read it and enjoyed what I’ve read so far. Can’t wait to hear what you thought of it!
Diane, I currently work at a law library and more and more of our legal resources are online including treatises. I think the students like that but the professors, there is definitely a generational divide there. Your Libby made me think of my Kamir who we lost almost 4 years ago and I still expect to see him sleeping in his favorite places. Big hugs!
Litlove, the book is complicated and slow in English, but beautiful, so I can only imagine what reading the French must be like!
At my library we are just getting started with ebooks–we get more paper books than ebooks, but our other resources (periodicals) are probably mostly online these days. Interestingly we are going to be starting patron driven acquisitions (only ebooks), so this will be something new.
Danielle, I’ll be extremely interested to hear about your patron driver acquisitions and how it works out. I think the undergrad library at my university is using a patron driven model for the five Kindles that they circulate and it seems to be quite popular.