So have you made your plans for supporting the even greater tsunami of ebook seekers following holiday gift giving of electronic goodies?  If you thought it was ebook crazy last year, this year will be even multiplied at least ten fold.  Suggestion: make it really clear on the front page of your website how to deal with ebooks — how to download to particular devices (step by step), how to find ebooks in your collection, tips, FAQs, etc.  Be prepared so your customers don’t get frustrated and bypass your library.

Retailers have Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  I think libraries should have a catchy name for the ebook extravaganza following electronic holiday giving  – Ebook Xday, or maybe just Ebookday.  Got some other suggestions?

1. An unfinished e-book isn’t a constant reminder to finish reading it.  My kindle is always with me (that’s why I got into trouble when I dropped it in the bathtub!)

2. You can’t keep all your books in one place. I find this reason to be really interesting as ebooks are sorted by app and unless you use only one (like a Kindle) you will need some other app to put them all together.  Calling all librarians — you’ll have this one figured out soon I’m sure.  Just look at the “Amazon”-like book catalogs in many libraries.

3. Notes in the margin make you think.  Hmmmmm, white space in ebooks for readers to riff in…..interesting.

4. Ebooks are positioned to be disposable, but their prices aren’t. Well, there is some progress in the ability to share ebooks and libraries are finding more ways to lend ‘em.  But we are definitely not there yet.

5. Ebooks can’t be used for interior design. No, but they take up a hell of a lot less space in your house or office!  Thank goodness!  And you can take your collection with you anywhere you go.

So maybe we aren’t there yet, but we’re getting closer!  And I can’t wait for all the ebook discussions at Internet Librarian 2011 .  There is a two day stream of programs planned, Ebook Evolution & Revolution, Oct 18/19 in Monterey CA  and it’s filled with publishers, distributors, aggregators, librarians from every type of library, industry watchers, and more!  Should be a great conversation.  Hope you can join in!

For those of you who missed James Crawford, Engineering Director, Google books at the conference, check out his talk.  And also a great panel discussion of ebooks and Google books by Roy Tennant, Stephen Abram, Dick Kaser, and Marshall Breeding.

So I downloaded a bunch of books to take away with a month ago.  BTW, it is easy on the Kindle as it has wireless capabilities.   I loved the feel of the Kindle, the weight, the ease of use as soon as I started using it.  I could bump the font up so I don’t have to squint (yeah, I’m getting old!).  I could take it anywhere; even on the bright sunny beach it excelled.  The one thing I had not anticipated was that I could rest the reader on my knee, on the back of the seat in front of me on the plane, on a pillow and only flick the next page button — so almost hands free,  amazing.  The Kindle even passed the bathtub test ( I didn’t drop it) although I’m now trying to design a bathtub accessory for hands free usage!

After reading 3 ebooks, I read a trade paperback and couldn’t wait to get back to the Kindle.  So I now know it is definitely all about the content, not the format, for me.  There will be many less piles of books in my future, and many more ebooks in my Kindle.  Oh Kindle, My Kindle, I love you!’

I also think it’s interesting that Deloitte’s top predicition for TMT (Technology, Media, Telecommunications) in their Canadian predictions for 2010 is, “E-readers will see strong growth in 2010, but this will slow down the following year due to competition from other mobile devices like smart phones, netbooks and tablets. Deloitte anticipates e-readers will ultimately remain a niche device, while e-book sales skyrocket.”  Content rules, containers change and so do we!