Hearsay evidence re: digital comics

Have you tried reading comics on an ebook reader yet? I would like to, but alas, my ebook reader is giving me an error message. This may or may not be related to my forays into downloading illegal copies of ebooks for research purposes.

So although ebook comics are now available on Overdrive, I cannot partake of them. But here's what I'm hearing from other people:

I played with the Nook

I went to Barnes and Noble today to look at the Nook, and I was a bit enchanted. It looks a lot like an Apple device: thin, white, minimally labeled. It does say "Barnes and Noble" on it. It makes sense that it was B&N rather than Borders* that dove into the eReader field, because they were the store that crossed over into publishing with their line of classics. I believed they've also been at the forefront of in-store print-on-demand technology.

Anyway, the Nook has a mini full-color touch screen on the bottom, separate from the screen that displays the text of the book. This is best-of-both-worlds in that it you have a quick-responding touch screen menu, but the beauty of the E Ink display up top, unmarred by the extra layer required for touch screen capability. The touch screen definitely makes navigation faster than on my Sony eReader pocket edition, although the page-turn delay is about the same. There are forward and back buttons on both the right and left sides of screen, which give you more flexibility in how you hold it, too.

However, there is also just a little bit of a disconnect:

Comparing Sketchup and Floorplanner

Sometimes impressing people is the best approach to getting your way. You can measure, you can reason, you can provide data. But if you can show people a 3D model, they might just let you move all the furniture in the library. That's what happened to me.


(Actually, we had to move all the furniture, because G-Tech donated a block of children's computers, and they just wouldn't fit in our old space. But I still think the 3D model gave me a lot of credibility when I proposed a new layout.)

I used Floorplanner to do the 3D model, without really investigating my options. So I was wondering what else was out there, and guess what? Google has a similar program. Shocking, right?

How to Celebrate Democracy with Your eReader

It's time to do one of my favorite things: Summarize. Based on brief but frenzied experiments with my eReader, I've compiled a list of tips on enjoying ebooks, with a special emphasis on avoiding DRM:

1. Buy something other than a Kindle. (See my previous post or this article about Sony's "Open Kimono" policy.)

2. Download Calibre. You're going to need something to manage your ebooks--an iTunes for books, if you will. Calibre is a free, open-source ebook management software. Although it doesn't work with DRM-protected ebooks, you can avoid dealing with those except when you download library books. In that case, DRM is necessary to make sure the book gets "returned," a.k.a. deleted from your eReader. More about that in a minute.

First, a rant about DRM

I got my eReader and it's splendid! But it's also true that DRM* is like an evil curse that has been cast on my device. This cartoon is my favorite depiction of how DRM can ruin your library experience (click to see it bigger):
The comic is about downloading audio books, but I had a similar experience downloading my first ebook. Not that I wasn't successful. I was just a little disappointed that I had to download the Sony Reader Software and the Adobe Digital Editions Software and register with Adobe as well as download the ebook to my computer and then upload it to my device in order to read the ebook on my Sony Reader. Phew!

Why I'm getting a Sony eReader and You Should, Too

Or at least, you shouldn't buy a Kindle.Now, I understand that plenty of people are happy with paper pages, but as a librarian, I feel it is my duty--my duty, I say!--to learn about these newfangled devices. And I believe that an eReader could complement someone's library use in two special ways:

1. eReaders give you significantly faster access to bestsellers at a reasonable price (Bestseller ebooks are $9.99 on Amazon and the Sony eReader store). You can get bestsellers through the library, but unless you predict that they will be bestsellers well in advance, you could be #241 on the hold list.*

I just noticed that bestseller is a word--as in, spell check accepts it. Yet, it does not accept Spellcheck. Weird.

2. eReaders allow you to download ebooks from libraries, Google Books, and other independent sites. The Kindle does not allow you to do this!

Kindle books are in another format, and the Kindle does not support the epub format used by libraries, Google books, etc. Nor does it support PDF files. So if you buy a Kindle, you can only buy books from Amazon. See? That is not in the spirit of democracy or public libraries.