Stephen Abram posted about the Kindle, noting that most of the people writing about the Kindle (in the library world, mostly negatively) have not held the thing. It’s a fair point. After all, we wouldn’t want people criticizing the library without actually trying it out.
But.
I still think there’s good reason to criticize, and I don’t think it’s necessary to spend $400 for the right to criticize when Amazon makes it very plain what you can’t do. (OK, not very plain, you have to find the right links, but it is on their website.)
In other news, Abram bought an OLPC! Yay! I hope all the librarians who bought one bring them to ALA so we can dork out and connect on the mesh network. :)
Not to belabor the point, but librarians are too quick to criticize this. I think such public criticism makes us look stodgy and old. Furthermore, the profliferation of e-books will not come from a device such as this (even though the Sony Reader as had a good deal of success), but it will come when mobile devices can read the screen like the sony reader can.
Essentially, if you slap the e-ink technology (or the ability to switch to such a screen) on an iphone, and you will have the ultimate e-reader. A reader than also work as a pda, phone, music player, video player, the works AND it can access the internet from anywhere.
Oh, I agree. Add to that the ability to get my own documents on and off the device and the ability to read common doc formats, and I’m there. It’s not that I’m against spending money on an e-reader, it’s just I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on a device that doesn’t fit into my already established workflow.
I really don’t think interoperability is asking too much.
As I said in my previous post, teens and college students (including me) already have their e-reader of choice – it’s called a laptop, you can get one for $400, and you can read all the books you want on it. A device like this is a specialty item, but one that will capture enough of an audience to make it a big deal when it’s announced.
I am not a librarian, but from what i read so far, i think there is a solid basis for criticism of Kindle and i blogged about this. Actually in light of OLPC promotion going on right now, this criticism is especially apparent. If you have $400 to spend, i would argue for buying the XO laptop (OLPC).