Kindle Books from your local library

Amazon announced yesterday (9/21) that Kindle and Kindle app customers can now borrow books from more than 11,000 local libraries in the United States.

According to the press release:

"Customers will use their local library's website to search for and select a book to borrow. Once they choose a book, customers can choose to "Send to Kindle" and will be redirected to Amazon.com to login to their Amazon.com account and the book will be delivered to the device they select via Wi-Fi, or can be transferred via USB. Customers can check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any generation Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry or Windows Phone, as well as in their web browser with Kindle Cloud Reader....

When borrowing a Kindle book from their local library, customers can take advantage of all of the unique features of Kindle books, including:

• Whispersync technology wirelessly sync your books, notes, highlights, and last page read across Kindle and free Kindle reading apps
• Real Page Numbers let you easily reference passages with page numbers that correspond to actual print editions
• Facebook and Twitter integration makes it easy to share favorite passages with your social networks
• Popular Highlights show you what our community of millions of Kindle readers think are the most interesting passages in your books
• Public Notes allow you to share your notes and see what others are saying about Kindle book"

What we are reading...

Joyce Valenza's "Manifesto for 21st Century School Librarians" published in October VOYA;

Rob Reynolds' long-ish Prezi on "The Past, Present, and Future of Higher Education Textbook Publishing"

Sarah Houghton-Jan's (Librarian in Black blog) reflection on The Future of Libraries 2010: The Consumer and Library E-book Markets (featuring speakers Paul Sims, Ann Awakuni, & Henry Bankhead) held this week and sponsored by San Francisco Public library.

AND great RESOURCES for STUDENTS from Khan Academy

Find a great resource this week? Please post it to the comments section or email one of us.

E-Reader Applications

In the Personal Tech section of today's New York Times iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android apps for e-readers are compared.  Bob Tedeschi explaines the differences between the iBooks app for the iPad, the Barnes & Noble eReader, iPhone app,  the Kindle app for the iPhone, and the Kobo app backed by Borders.
The e-Reader industry is in its infancy and hopefully e-readers will continually improve and prices will become more competitive. When Booksellers let us use what we buy and share it, this industry will explode.  Read more...

Glad I didn't buy a Kindle yet....

The new LCD displays will be in color which will be a true game changer because charts/graphics/photos will be more legible

Color ebooks are expected to be on the market in about 6 months.

Read more here.

Sales of these devices will boom when more textbooks are included. Are textbook publishers hanging by a thread and trying to stop the release of digitized textbooks? Will the ebook innovators leave everyone in the dust?

E-texts and Student Use

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes an article discussing e-books: “Book Smarts? E-Texts Receive Mixed Reviews from Students”. It raises some question about the technology -- such as ability to highlight and post notes -- and about the cost needing to be lower relative to traditional print textbooks. However, many schools (including California K-12 and several colleges) and publishers are continuing to experiment with this technology. We will hear more about this option in the future.