Thing 20: To Continue on with Books and Such…

So I continued with these topics, and the next interesting Thing are Kindles and all things Kindle like. Electronic books, not just ebooks, but complete hand held devices that allow one to read a book electronically. Without a computer monitor. Just a little hand held device. Kind of like a paperback book, on not made out of paper. Clear? So I don’t know about these yet. I haven’t read one, and in looking at the possibility of circulating them through the library, it appears that several titles can be available at a time. So is that a circulation of one item, or is there a way to track individual title usage within a loan period? I suppose these questions will go beyond speculation for many libraries soon. But as I have read through different opinions about these, they have some distinct drawbacks in comparison to their paper counter parts. Distinctions in function and design that will be thought out and overcome in time. So I can see the rise of the Kindle.

The next Thing I looked at was reading a book through your phone. Hmmmm, nope this has zero appeal to me. Way too much scrolling and futzing around with the text to get into a good reading groove. I suppose it would be better on something like an iPhone, with a larger screen, but it’s still not large enough for me to consider it. I suppose that if you were interested in portability and needed to study while traveling it might have some purpose, but then again so does a paper book. I looked at BooksinMyPhone and txt2ph, and that was enough to help me form an opinion.

The next Thing was the Readers’ Advisory. I actually found this quite interesting. The first two, Reading Trails and Bookamp were pretty cool, but I liked to former better. It is really interconnected and can lead you into some surprising paths. I am interested in spending more time in there. BookStupmers was very cool, but less useful as a guide in the labyrinth of which authors you might like to try reading. But really cool none the less. There is an old story I remember reading in grade school that I can’t find an original copy of, and am interested in maybe putting in a stumper myself.

Online Book Communities. These I have less of an interest in. The discussion of books amongst readers is not something I am very interested in perusing; it kind of falls into the “why I don’t tend to read blogs” category. Lots of people think they are experts on subjects, but really just like to talk and sound impressive. It’s not for me. I will say that as an ebook tool, BookGlutton and the Unbound Reader are really cool. I dig the format they both provide. I can just do without other people's comments.

Book clubs, well I know lots of people like them, and that is cool. I do sort of place book clubs into the above topic, so it goes without saying that they are not for me.

Online Audiobook sites, now these are really cool. I love the idea behind Libivox. Power to the people! I guess I need to spend some more time in there. Are the files available to download and burn to CD. I’m not inclined to sit there and listen to a book at a computer, but I would be interested in listen while driving.

Book Reviews, this Thing does very little for me, since I very rarely do any reading based off of book reviews. But it is a good thing to know where it is in case a patron is interested.

Book Rental, well as a librarian, I like the idea that you can get a book you want to read, and then when you are done you can give it back, so you aren’t cluttering up your house with a bunch of books you probably will never read again, but I hate to point out the obvious: That is kind of the point of a library. Why not just borrow a book from the library? It’s free!

In the facebook Thing, I added Worldcat to my account/profile. That’s enough for me. I don’t feel a need to project what I like to read all over my facebook page.

Book Swap, now this is really cool. It’s like the library without walls. As much as I love libraries, I love this idea too. And the Book Crossing site is wild. It’s like the idea that you draw something (which of course you wouldn’t because it’s defacing government property) on a dollar bill and see if you come across it again. Only this way you get to track the life of the item. I may just have to try this out.

For the last Thing listed, I did look at the online Children’s Book sites, and I do like them. In fact I think tonight I’ll haul the old computer up to the kid’s room and set it up in my son’s bed and we’ll curl up and read a nice goodnight story, by the flickering warmth of my monitor. Or maybe not. They are cool sites though.

So in conclusion of all these Things that make up this one Thing, and that is a lot of things we are talking about, it is very interesting to see all the creative productions of and around books that are going on in the greater World Wide Web. So Thing 21 beckons me from a distance, and we all know not to ignore these things, so here I go…