Libraries fuel e-book market
Libraries fuel e-book market
And more on e books (Ed.):
E-books have suffered a slow start and several setbacks over the past couple of years, but industry observers says things are finally turning around. “There was a pricing impediment and a quality impediment”, says Rosetta Books CEO Arthur Klebanoff, who cites a new generation of e-book devices that could jumpstart sales. “Today the [digital] reading experience is much better and prices have fallen.” But the biggest push may come from several library consortia that have added e-books to their collections. The King County system in the Seattle area offers members about 2,000 titles and records show about 3,200 e-books were checked out between 15 September and the end of November. “The response has been pretty good”, says King County Library System associate director Bruce Schauer. “In general, e-books will likely be used primarily for quick reference [on subjects] such as medical,travel and law. People are also using the search and highlight functions for homework.”
Source: Shelflife No 139, 15 January 2004, available at: www.rlg.org
