So in order to support my habit I bought the $79 kindle. Way better than the 10 bucks a pop. In the first week of having my kindle I got a 10 book series from the library, which would have cost 9.99 a book from Amazon. I intentionally bought the kindle because I thought it would cut down on my ebook purchases.

Additionally, I don’t want to spend money on something when it’s available from my library. It seems wasteful.

I think some people though, some wealthy kindle owners I know, will just buy the books without looking at the library.

I actually found this site because I googled the licensing on the books. I’ve noticed that the some of the newer books I want to read are available in audio, and then in some indeterminate time become available in Kindle format. I was googling to figure out how long I will have to wait!

RE: income, purchasing devices, etc.

We do have some known lower-income patrons – excuse me, I am required to call them “customers” now – customers who own eReaders, but the majority of eReader owners in our busy mid-sized library are more affluent types who often state that they received their’s as gifts from their children but hadn’t really wanted one (we hear this A LOT). Also, frequently they are affluent people who travel a great deal, hence the eReader purchase.

To be very honest, the (known) lower-income here use the library for the internet, free DVDs, and, yes, free video games.

Of course, an argument can be made that we have no way of knowing who is low or high income – but anyone who’s worked in a library for a long time will agree that we figure it out pretty quickly.

Also, a side note – those free video games? They are stolen or not returned after only 1 or 2 check-outs. It’s become a game to see how long until they go missing. Yet, we keep replacing them. Constantly. THAT, I agree, is stupid.

http://www.wclibrary.info

I’m frankly surprised at the number of people I have encountered who refuse to buy ebooks. I bought my Kindle fully expecting to buy the ebooks too.

It’s not, however, reasonable for someone to purchase an XBox360 without having enough money to also purchase games. Libraries don’t typically lend video games. I don’t know of anywhere that lends video games free of charge.

So, your entire analogy falls apart. It is possible to borrow eBooks for no charge, and therefore could be worthwhile for someone to invest in an eReader without being able to purchase eBooks. It’s not possible to get games for your XBox360 at no charge, and therefore would be completely stupid to purchase an XBox360 without being able to purchase games for it.

Another perspective I have is that I am also a published author. I like having a few copies of my books in circulation at libraries, but I would also like to earn royalties from purchases. There should be some compromise available. I think it could be that you would have to wait some set amount of time to be able to access an ebook version of a novel in a library… like 3 months or something.

Why don’t you agree with this logic? What is the argument against my analogy?

Also, publishers go with ebooks because we NEVER ACTUALLY OWN THEM. We only rent the rights to them- to be taken away at any time.

“We have to start providing electronic content whether we want to or not, in order to remain relevant and useful to our patrons.” That time has not arrived yet- and it might never arrive. While it’s great to think about it and keep it in mind, I think it’s a bridge to cross when we get there.

What we don’t need to do, is stock minidiscs or betamax or anything else that caters to a platform specific middleman.

I don’t agree with the logic that someone has no business buying an eReader if they can’t afford to purchase eBooks for it. Yes, people are buying eReaders (either for themselves or as gifts) because they expect libraries to have eBooks they can borrow. Shouldn’t they be able to expect this? The main purpose of libraries has always been to provide access to books; why should the format change this?

People spend money on what they like and what’s important to them. I buy ebooks of text books and books that I have previewed and I know I want to own… or books that were very cheap (under $5 and many free). I have hundreds of ebooks, more than I have time to read. I bought my kindles (recently upgraded to a Fire) to stop cluttering up my apartment with printed books.

Libraries don’t ‘need’ to provide e-content. There should not be this huge focus on this as some wave of the future to modernize libraries.

I have heard upper management of the public library where I work say, ‘Our patrons don’t care about printed books anymore’. They believe our patrons are mostly interested in internet access and movies. It sounds to me like that idea of the library of the future is quite anti-library; like it will be devoid of books. It’s a ridiculous notion to me.