Kindle vs. Hard Copy

Kindle vs. Hard Copy

The Kindle is an electronic book. Not just any book; it can hold up to 200 titles, access newspapers and magazines, and email. Sound amazing!? The Kindle is an electronic book put out by Amazon. It works much like an IPod downloading music.

By connecting to the network EVDO, a free wireless network, the owner of a Kindle can purchase reading material, access email, and preview books. The battery lasts up to 2 days and can be charged in 2 hours. Unlike a laptop, the screen is not hard to see in the sun light, in fact, it reads much like a text book.

Why is this important, because this may be the wave of the new library? In Ashburnham, Mass. at Cushing Academy, they have got rid of 10,000 books in their library and are planning on getting rid of the other 10,000 books. They decided to go this route because of the lack of use of both the library and the books. They tracked that less than 30 books were being checked out on some days, which is 0.15% of their books. Their answer, get rid of the books and bring in the Kindle.

The heat that was received over this switch was an expensive espresso machine (12K), cost of the Kindle, technology becoming obsolete, and the sentimental value of the books. The 12 thousand dollar machine was a huge debate, but it did bring in new customers and they will be able to sell their drinks. The cost of the Kindle at $259 was justified that the books are at most $9.99 from Amazon and as cheap as $5 compared to $30 for a hard copy book. The other fear is that the technology will become obsolete in 10 years where as hard copy books have not changed much in 100 years. Finally, people just hang onto books. They get sentimental and think that it is against the rules to throw things out.

I think that this move is bold and on the cutting edge. I just heard about the Kindle 3 weeks ago. I know; I had to come out from under my rock. We also landed on the Moon! They are a neat little technology. Why hinder technology if it is cost effective, efficient, gets the job done and kids love it.

I do support their idea of keeping some of the texts around in order to use the hard copy versions. I think that the Kindles will increase student usage of the library and will be easier to use for research with the 360,000 titles that Amazon has to offer. Without innovation and stepping out into the unknown, the Portobello mushroom would have never been discovered. Yes, some people have gotten sick, but progress was made. I think that we need to step out as educators and try out new technology.

What do you think?

Philip