eBook News

It's been a while, but today I felt like adapting some more classic art to include ereaders.  Reading Little Women from her iPad, This is Our Corner by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch-English, 1836-1912) Reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears with her Nexus, Seymour Joseph Guy's   The Story of Golden Locks (American, 1824-1910)

 I was just reading the PEW report concerning reading in 2013. With just the base facts: 3 in 10 adults read an ebook; half own a tablet or e-reader; 92% of adults own a cell phone (majority as smart phone); and the typical American (who read a book) read five books over the last year, but that only 4% of readers are digital only. First and foremost, I'm happy about the five, but only become from other studies I had heard, it was a lower number, so in that way five is a plus, over something like one. In looking closely at the foot notes though I found these two to be interesting. 3-  Though the mean represents the average number of books read, this number can be skewed by a relatively small number of very avid readers; this is why it is so much higher than the median, which shows the midpoint number of books read and therefore is a better measure of what the “typical” American’s reading habits look like. 4-  Among only adults who did read a book in the past yea...

First and foremost I want to thank the Pew Internet project for collecting and disseminating information about ebooks and reading. I love the data itself, I just always want more.  Whenever I read articles about reading habits and devices, I always wonder not just about the devices (or no device) that people are reading from, but I also wonder about the people being questioned about how much that they read. I see statements like the "more than 8 in 10 Americans ages 16-29 read a book in the past year and 6 in 10 used their local public library" and it makes me think about other questions. I remember when I was at the Butterfly exhibit in Gainesville, and the docent mentioned that this was the second largest butterfly habitat in the world, well the next words that I said (and at least three others at the same time) was "what is the largest?" So when I see something that mentions that 8 out of 10 people read a book that year, I wonder "at...

Karen Cator, the director of educational technology for the DOE talked today about changing from print to digital. She discussed (at ISTE) four ways that the DOE is helping make that shift: 1. Transparency (schools with access) 2. Digital Literacy (digitalliteracy.gov) 3. Bring your own device advice 4. Clearing house for professional networks While she was talking tech across the board, I do see aspects related to digital books here, especially in the "bring your own device advice" section. This week Pew Internet released data that 12% of adults have an e-reader device, and that 8% own a tablet (only a 3% overlap). Add that to existing data on smart phones (31%) and we begin to the possibility of using ebooks with your own device in schools. I've always thought that the model would be to have some basic ebook device that could be provided, but if the student wanted they could go outside the school and get their own device. When I started using a calc...

While some may look at tablets taking away from dedicated ebook readers, I don't really see it that way. Tablets are chosen for their ease of use and acceptability. I know that I often use mine when watching a show, to look up some interesting facts (like when watching The Glades to see what pregnancy lollipops were), checking email during  advertising, or finding out what song was playing during a sequence. But for the most part I use my tablet for short term reading. When I really want to spend some time reading, by ebook device does a better job, it weighs less, lasts longer, and fits in my hand better. At the same time, I'm thinking that for many a tablet would be a gateway device to an ebook reader, once you start finding things to read that you like, you will want more. Tablets chip away at laptops, e-readers Survey data from Parks Associates indicate that 10.5 million American households now contain at least one tablet PC -- the equivalent of 13% of a...