I bought an ebook reader this week (a Sony PRS-505, more on that in another posting, I promise) and have been so busy figuring our the whole ebook game that I have not taken the time either to read many of the blogs that I follow or to write. Here are my first impressions of ebooks, in emotional order.
- I love the concept. They appeal to the geek in me. They appeal to the ecologist in me.
- Having a device designed for reading ebooks made all the difference. They went from being an interesting curiosity which I could not imagine actually using because I would have to sit in front of my computer to being something which is, in some ways, significantly more convenient than physical books.
- Selection sucks. Much of what I want to read is not available as an ebook.
- The copy protection, a/k/a digital rights management (“DRM”) sucks. If I buy a book, I don’t want the publisher to keep me from selling it when I am done with it or donating it to my local public library or from giving it to a friend.
- I love that my slim little ebook reader carries lots of books around inside it and remembers where I am in all of the books. I can bounce back and forth from one book to another and never worry about losing my place in any of them.
- There are lots of good, free ebooks out there. And it bothers me that Netlibrary, which I think my local public library pays money to, has a bunch of those free books in the collection. Does that mean that my tax dollars are being used by my library to rent and distribute free materials?
Must go to work now. More later when I can tear myself away from Sherlock Holmes.
