Online lending library gives reading a new lease of life

• By Gautam Sunder
Coimbatore

School students enjoy a story-telling session.

But with school students increasingly being hooked to their laptops and iPads, the worry is that many in the current generation might never fully appreciate the joy of books.For years, libraries have been thronged by children searching for their favourite authors or preparing to spend a lazy weekend curled up with a novel in hand.

But the same technology that snatches away the joy of holding a book also seems to find a way to keep the current crop hooked to it. Along with all other goods and services that have gone from brick and mortar to their online avatar, so have libraries.

Online lending libraries have become a popular way of piquing interest among today's children to give book reading a shot, much to the delight of parents and teachers.

One such initiative that has seen success is iloveread.in (skip the dots and pronounce it)

“ILR was founded by Amrutash Mishra and Sahil Gore in Chennai, and launched in Coimbatore early this year.

People have the liberty to browse through a wide collection of books belonging to every genre possible and get them delivered with just a click.

We have tie-ups with several schools in Tamil Nadu where we have begun the Book Lovers Program for Schools (BLPS). A series of activities at BLPS equips teachers to handle storytelling sessions for the children.

The stories complement the curriculum and are for students upto class 8. It's a great platform for them to be exposed to the wonderful world of stories. Add-on libraries are also implemented in schools”, says R. Anitha, who runs ILR in Coimbatore.

“We conducted an interactive event recently in Coimbatore, and it was a great success. Ms. Shilpa Krishnan,a veteran storyteller from Chennai and a part of the BLPS program, enthralled kids in a fun session. She also spoke to parents about the importance of art in a child's life”, she adds.

Anitha signs off by saying, “In order to ensure we keep up with emerging trends in reading, we add atleast 400-odd books to our library each month.

People who aren't net-savvy can register and avail the service by phone as well. We have plans to infuse corporates with the love of reading soon too!”

Maya Gowri, a working young mother from Coimbatore comments, “My youngest son Vishwa is in class 4, and as much as I'd like to take him to the library every week, we parents sometimes do not find the time.

An online library is a great opportunity for us to inculcate the habit of reading in him, and through the convenience of a laptop.

Also, it's very useful for working professionals like me to come home and catch up on some much-needed lost reading from over the years!”

More News at : http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/education/online-lending-library-gives-reading-new-lease-life-698

Many Kindle, Nook owners are clueless about borrowing library e-books

BY MIKE FLACY

As Amazon and Barnes & Noble continue to promote the use of e-readers among customers, libraries haven't quite been able to get the word out about free e-book borrowing.

According to a new study conducted by Pew’s Internet & American Life Project, nearly six out of ten library patrons weren’t even aware that they could borrow e-books for free from their library. Furthermore, only twelve percent of Americans above the age of 16 have borrowed an e-book from their local library in the past twelve months. Specific to technology, fifty-three percent of tablet owners didn’t know about the availability of library e-books and 48 percent of Kindle and Nook owners were just as uninformed. In addition, approximately half of respondents that have read at least one e-book in the past year weren’t aware about library e-book borrowing .

Of the small portion of people that have checked out an e-book in the last year, half of those people haven’t been able to locate a particular book in an electronic format or found a long waiting list to get access to the book.

Since libraries pay for a limited number of copies to legally lend out, many libraries use an email waiting list to notify a patron about the availability of the book. Once the book is returned by another patron, the next patron on the waiting list receives an email and has a limited amount of time to download the title. An additional eighteen percent of those people were able to locate the correct book, but the book format wasn’t compatible with their e-reader or tablet. 

Americans that do have a library card are much more likely to own and use more technology than people without cards. Pew researchers found that eighty-seven percent of library card holders owned their own desktop or laptop computer compared to sixty-seven percent of people without a library card. However, that difference was much smaller with mobile phone ownership. 

Likely interesting to companies like Amazon that sell e-books, over forty percent of the people that regularly read e-books checked out from the library purchased the last book that they read. In addition, library card holders also read about twice as many books per year as people without a library card. 

This is likely one reason why Amazon promotes the Lending Library feature in order to encourage Kindle owners to use the e-reader more and discover new books. When it comes to finding new books, an e-book borrower is much more likely to get a book recommendation from an online review over a recommendation from a staff member at a bookstore or a librarian. 

When Pew researchers asked librarians about the influence of e-books on the library, many librarians stated that library patrons were visiting the physical library location less and seeking out information about the library’s collection through the Internet. In addition, the purchasing policy is shifting at most libraries to free up funds to purchase more copies of e-books. Money to fund these purchases is being moved from physical, printed copies as well as audio books on compact disc. The role of librarians is also shifting to a larger role in technical support in order to help library patrons download copies of e-books to their devices as well as search the library catalog through an online site instead of a local database.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gadgets/many-kindle-nook-owners-are-clueless-about-borrowing-library-e-books/#ixzz1ymNgM4DF

E-book library borrowing takes slow pace: Study

New York: E-book readers have been relatively slow to borrow digital works from the library, frustrated by a limited selection and by not even knowing whether their local branch offers e-releases, according to a new study.

The Pew Research Center published a survey Friday that reports around 12 percent of e-book users 16 years and older downloaded a text from the library over the past year. Earlier in 2012, Pew issued a study showing that around 20 percent of adults had read an e-book recently.

Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group and other major publishers have limited e-book offerings to libraries or refused to make any available, citing concerns that the ease of free downloads would hurt sales. Lack of awareness may be another factor. Around 60 percent of those 16 and older couldn't say whether their libraries had e-books.

Pew's Internet & American Life Project study, conducted with nearly 3,000 respondents between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, 2011, suggests that library patrons trying to borrow digital texts have been deterred by the selection and by not having the right e-book device. Just over half of respondents said their library did not have the book they were looking for and nearly 20 percent found that the device they owned could not receive a given title.

Nearly half of those who have not borrowed an e-book said they would be "very" or "somewhat" interested if they were lent an e-reading device with a book already downloaded.

Officials from the American Library Association have been meeting with publishers in an effort to work out a system that would satisfy both sides. On Thursday, Penguin Group (USA) announced a pilot program with the New York and Brooklyn library systems that will make e-books available six months after they first go on sale. Penguin had suspended its e-book program with libraries last year.

"I applaud Penguin's decision today to re-start e-book sales to libraries so that we may again meet our mutual goals of connecting authors and readers," library association president Molly Raphael said in a statement.

One statistic reported by Pew should please publishers and librarians: Those who borrow e-books from libraries tend to read more - 29 books a year - than readers who don't use the library (23 books). But library card holders also are more likely to borrow, as opposed to buy, a book compared to those without library cards.

Overall, around half of those surveyed said they had bought their most recent book. Around 15 per cent said they had borrowed a copy from the library.

Fore More Info, Please Click on: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ebook-library-borrowing-takes-slow-pace-study/267599-11.html

Kindle a Love of Reading for Your Kids

Kindles, Nooks and other electronic reading devices are quickly gaining in popularity. A few years ago, only the biggest of bibliophiles had an e-reader. Today, more and more people are purchasing devices or installing apps onto their phones.

Digital sales are steadily increasing and publishers, recognizing the changes in the marketplace, have begun releasing a greater variety of books into e-book format. While the technology is still new and there are a few bumps along the way, such as the Amazon pricing scandal and the debate over DRMs, e-books are here to stay and many people may find that they’re much more versatile than traditional books.

Kindles for Parents and Kids

The Kindle provides a great opportunity for your whole family. No matter the age of your child, everyone can benefit from some aspect of the e-reader’s technology. Kindles allow kids nearly unlimited access to books, making them a convenient form of entertainment while on car rides, at the doctor’s office, waiting in line at the grocery or other occasions where kids may become bored and restless.

Unlike regular books, the Kindle is small, lightweight and surprisingly durable; you don’t have to worry about tearing book covers, dog-earing pages or cracking the spine. Of course, e-readers are more valuable than books, so parents may be concerned about the risks of dropping them, having sticky liquids spilled on them or other kinds of rough handling. Some e-reader companies are creating kid-friendly versions, so that may be a good alternative for some people.

What Are the Benefits of e-Readers for Kids?

• You can store nearly unlimited numbers of books so avid readers always have a selection to choose from
• You can download any public domain book for free, so classics are instantly available
• In addition to reading books, kids can play games, solve puzzles or even surf the web on some e-readers
• Most e-readers have an option to read the book aloud or download audio books for younger readers
• You can adjust the text size to aid reading comprehension
• Books can be divided into reading lists so a family can share a device
• You can load Kindle or Nook apps onto your smart phone
• The reading device comes with a built-in dictionary to look up unfamiliar words

What are the Drawbacks of e-Readers for Kids?

• Expensive technological investment to buy an e-reader
• Technology is fairly fragile
• If something happens to the e-reader, you may lose all the books you own or be unable to install them to another device
• You must keep the e-reader charged
• Not as many children’s books are released to the Kindle as adult books
• Many e-readers don’t support full-color illustrations and picture books
• Parents may be tempted to give a child an e-reader instead of spending time reading with him

Overall, e-books can be a great addition to a child’s life and education, but they’re not the right investment for everyone. Focus on providing the best solution to your family, and don’t forget that reading with your young child is always better than relying on digital babysitters.