E-Readers at the Romeo District Library

We’ve already discussed e-readers in an academic setting in a previous post and there are many articles on the web that discuss e-readers in public libraries.  I thought it would be interesting though, to find out more about how e-readers are being used in our own local public libraries.  As a result, I made a visit to my local library, the Graubner Branch Library, part of the Romeo District Library in Romeo, Michigan. 

At the library, I spoke with Heather VanFleet, one of the Adult Services Librarians.  She informed me that the Romeo District Library actually has five e-readers that patrons can check out.  She said the only way that Romeo was able to provide the Kindle’s to patrons, was because the Lion’s Club of Romeo donated them. 

I asked her what having e-readers available meant for the library and for the librarians that worked there.  She told me that the library staff is split on how they feel about e-readers, which really didn’t surprise me.  Some of the staff have e-readers and love them and others really don’t like them, but they are still happy that they can offer that service to patrons who do like them.  She also told me that although they are very grateful that they were given Kindles, it also creates some problems.  I wasn’t aware of this before, but apparently Kindles are only compatible with e-books purchased from Amazon.  The e-books available through the Romeo District Library are actually available through Overdrive and the Suburban Library Cooperative.  Not all of the e-books available there are from Amazon and so if a patron checks out a Kindle, they won’t have access to all of the e-books. 

The Lending Agreement Form

Additionally, the Kindles create a little more work and worry for the librarians.  Each patron who wants to check out a kindle, must fill out a Kindle Lending Agreement Form.  The form was actually modeled off of the one used at the Clinton-Macomb Public Library for their e-reader lending.  Additionally, the librarian must fill out a checklist.  Not only do they have to verify that the patron qualifies to borrow an e-reader, but the librarian also has to make sure that the device is still working, that all of the parts are still present, and that the titles are loaded on the Kindle.  Because of e-readers, each librarian who helps a patron check one out must know how to use the e-reader, so that requires additional training for each staff member.

Another issue with e-readers at the Romeo District Library is that because of their value and the limited number of e-readers available, not every patron will be qualified to use the Kindle.  The library requires that each user be at least 18 years old and they must be a resident of either the village of Romeo or two of the surrounding townships.  Additionally, the patron is required to pay a $20.00 refundable deposit.  Not everyone will be able to afford to pay this deposit and so I think it really limits which patrons will be able to use the e-readers.  If the e-reader is damaged or lost, there are additional fees that the patron will be responsible for as well, so there’s a possibility that some people may not want to take that risk of checking one out.  Lastly, their Kindles are only available for a week at a time because of their high demand and for some, that may not be enough time to finish an e-book.

I am in no way saying that I think e-readers in public libraries are a bad idea, nor am I implying that I think the Romeo District Library is doing a poor job at providing e-readers and managing their lending program.  The real problems in providing e-readers in public libraries comes from the fact that there are limits to which e-books are used on which e-readers because of the many different brands and companies that sell them.   Another problem is that because of the high cost of e-readers, libraries have to take many precautions with their e-readers, which can lead to patrons having to shell out quite a bit of money to use one if some sort of accident happens with it.

I actually think having e-readers in a public library could be a great idea, especially for those patrons who would love to be able to use an e-reader and have access to the many e-books available.  I just think that having e-readers in public libraries won’t be a practical thing to offer until the costs go down, so all patrons can have access, and the access to e-books, based on e-reader brand, improves.

Sources and important links listed below:

http://www.libcoop.net/romeo/

http://slc.lib.overdrive.com/A732D534-A90C-46DA-A12D-1BED3D28B52A/10/496/en/Default.htm

E-Readers in the Classroom

When considering the impact that e-readers from the point of view of academics, the question that should be asked before all others is: Should we even bother?

If e-readers do not provide any distinct academic advantages to the students or the institutions over paper books, then time and resources should not be wasted with attempting to adapt them to classroom use.  Along these lines, studies have been performed at Penn State University during the 2008 - 2009 academic year, and at Princeton University in the fall of 2009.

The Penn State study used 100 of the Sony PRS-505, and did not focused exclusively on their use in the classroom.  Due to the licencing model of the Sony reader, which was designed so that the "e-library" on a computer can be synced with at most five individual readers, the study's administrators had to get a bit creative to run their 100 readers on less than 20 machines.  They did in fact solve this problem using two computers, nine virtual machines, and separate log-in information for each e-library.  The readers were loaded with leisure reading as well as the required materials for classes.  The study was run in both English and library studies classes.

The reactions of the students pointed out several known issues with the readers, but also gave some new insight with regards to their usefulness for classroom purposes.  According to the study, most students used the readers only in their dorm rooms despite the fact that it is a mobile device.  It was speculated from the students' comments that this was due to an inability to make in-text notations or easily navigate pages.  The students felt that the readers needed more multimedia functionality and wireless capability, and that it should have been easier to interact with the text.

The students felt, generally, more immersed in their texts when read on the readers.  In the English class, many of the students were not majoring in the humanities, and the overall feeling was that the Sony reader would not lend itself well to the hard sciences.  They did not want to commit to buying an e-reader in the near future as they were unsure if they would use it outside of the classroom assignments, and due to the fact that they felt it was probable that they'd have to buy paper books as well.

The article I viewed did not provide much in the way of statistics, and I would be interested in going over those.  Also, many of the issues that the students in the Penn State study had seemed specific to the Sony reader.

The Princeton study used the Amazon Kindle DX (which was not available at the time of the Penn State study) in conjunction with 3 faculty members and 51 students.  It focused on the effects of the e-readers on printing habits, and on overall classroom experience.

The study found that the use of the Kindle did, in fact, reduce the amount of printing by the students.  The average paper use of Kindle users was around half that of non-Kindle users, when compared to previous semester figures.

When asked to compare reading on the Kindle to reading out of a book, most students in the study felt that the experiences were about the same.  Most wished that more course readings were available on the Kindle, though they were not sure if more courses would use e-reader technology.  Several complaints about the difficulty of navigation were brought up as well.  The students liked having all of their course readings on one device and the ability to search on the Kindle.  They would have liked to have seen more compatibility with PDF files, better annotation tools, and the ability to organize documents into folders.

Overall, the consensus seemed to be that, though the students enjoyed reading on the Kindle, printed off less paper, and were happy to have all of their readings on one device, the Kindle left a lot to be desired in terms of note-taking.

Looking at these two studies, it seems to me that e-readers in their current form cannot supplant books in the classroom.  Though reading on them is convenient, they are designed with leisure reading in mind, not academics.  If e-readers were to be a viable option on college campuses, it is my opinion that the e-reader would have to be designed with specifically that purpose in mind.  Most importantly, making notations on the documents themselves and general navigation would need to be made easier.

I have wondered how much of our opinions on e-readers are shaped solely by the fact that we have been using books for so long, and going over these studies gives me something a bit more concrete to consider.  There are some essentials that are much, much easier to do on paper right now and, until e-readers provide a similar experience, they will always be deficient in the classroom.

The Penn State and Princeton studies can be found below:

americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/09242009/e-readers-action

www.princeton.edu/ereaderpilot/