Week Nine, Thing Twenty Two

On to eBooks. I try to encourage patrons to check out eBooks and when they turn up in the catalog. I give my little 30 second spiel about what they are, but so far people have seemed fairly reluctant to try them out. Home computers seem to be a rarity in the neighborhood where I work, so this could be a big part of the problem.

If I could generate enough interest, I would love to do a workshop on eBooks and have offered to train staff members on the eBook portion of our website. My main motivation is practice. I used eBooks a few times in graduate school, but haven't really used them much since. Most of the eBooks I would browse were software training manuals on Dreamweaver and Access. I would like to check out some language instruction books but so far haven't made the time for that.

These were the top 10 eBooks downloaded from Project Gutenberg on March 27, 2007

1. Manual of Surgery by Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson (896)
2. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (849)
3. Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by Paul Lacroix (508)
4. Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 01 by Elbert Hubbard (464)
5. Searchlights on Health by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols (400)
6. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard (374)
7. Great Britain and Her Queen by Annie E. Keeling (351)
8. Our Day by William Ambrose Spicer (335)
9. Kamasutra by Vatsyayana (302)
10. Illustrated History of Furniture by Frederick Litchfield (287)

Sort of an interesting cross-section of material. It seems like the list is heavy towards reference material and that is what I imagine eBooks are best suited for. I don't know anyone who prefers reading on a computer screen for a long period of time. But if you are working on a computer or hand held device, being able to consult a digital version of a book can be quite handy.