Week 11 Prompt

I LOVE using my Nook, phone and iPad to read e-books voraciously, anywhere, anytime. During my undergrad, this was especially helpful, because I was already carrying a lot of books with me for school, and e-books saved me time and backache! Having adopted reading them early on and having dived right in, I find the ease which they offer a huge appeal factor, and don’t find them intimidating! I love that I can download a new book at 2 a.m. because I just finished the one before it in a series and I must know what happens next. I love that I can change the font, the color, the backlight, etc. Changing these factors to suit my reading conditions at that moment, allows me to read with more ease and to comfortably and quickly get through books. However, since beginning work at the library, I have rediscovered my love for physical books. After my e-book sojourn, returning to books has reminded me how much I love the ability to smell a book, to turn its pages, and to feel its physical presence in my hands. Although they can be less convenient, and sometimes that is really important to me, they provide some appeal that e-books never will. Accordingly, I don’t see myself ever reading one type exclusively, but rather continuing to vacillate between the two formats as needed, and I love living in an age where I have so many options.

However, I have seen a new perspective of e-books now that I work with the public. I have seen how intimidating they can be to readers who have never ventured away from paper. I have seen how defeating it can be when technological issues get in the way of people reading a book they have been anticipating. And I have witnessed how sometimes e-books aren’t quite as capable as providing an escape to the reader, because the screen causes headaches, the battery dies, it’s too easy to get distracted by an app, and so on and so forth. Taking these new considerations into mind, as well as my own experiences, I try to remember both sides when working with patrons. Something that I am really proud of is that my library hosts an open drop in every week where we encourage our patrons to bring their e-readers so that we can show them how to manipulate the settings to create the ultimate appeal for themselves.

I have far less experience using audio books. The single audio book that I have ever listened to recreationally was a poor experience. The format through Audible wasn’t friendly to going back and forth between the e-book and the audio book, as I was doing. The author’s voice had a cadence and tone that I found to be more distracting than enjoyable, and I felt that the characterization was poorly done. The pacing was also too slow for me. The story was a fast-paced mystery that was building in suspense but the narrator would drag out certain sections unnecessarily. Before this section I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing a reader’s advisory interview for audio books with my limited, and poor experience, but they are very popular at my library so now I feel like I have a better understanding of the appeal and how to help!