Monday, June 2, 2008

BookExpo America: Hand-Wringing over Electronic Books

Link to June 2 New York Times article, "Electronic Device Stirs Unease at Book Fair ".

Quote: Much of the talk was focused on the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader, which has gained widespread acclaim for its ease of use. Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, spent much of a packed session on Friday evangelizing about the Kindle, which he said already accounts for 6 percent of his company’s unit sales of books that are available in both paper and electronic formats.


To read some of the key findings from the 2008/2009 edition of "Library Use of E-Books", published by the Primary Research Group, click here. (The full report will cost you $75.)

A sampling of the findings.

How-to books were used occasionally by about 37% of the libraries in the sample, but most said that they were little used. Non-U.S. libraries reported higher use than did U.S.-based libraries.

Many libraries reported significant use of electronic directories. 12.5% reported extensive use and 30% said that use was significant. The larger libraries reported the heaviest use.

Business books were among the most popular e-books, perhaps reflecting the great familiarity with electronic information in the corporate world and among students of that world. Nearly 23% of the libraries in the sample reported quite extensive use of their electronic collections of business books, and the same percentage reported significant use. Non-U.S. libraries reported even heavier use than did U.S. libraries.

Fiction e-books were not used extensively and close to 71% of libraries said that they were used little. Less than 10% reported extensive or significant use of fiction e-books.

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