The Present and Future of E-Books
The Book Is Not Doomed
History of the E-Book
 1971- Project Gutenberg begins. All text was entered manually until 1989. 
1985-mid90s- Many publishers offer books on CD-Rom 
1995- Amazon starts selling physical books on the internet. 
1998- The first two e-readers appear on the market: Rocket ebook and SoftBook.
2002- Major publishing houses start offering their works in a digital form. 
2006- Sony Reader released with e-ink. 
2007- Amazon creates the first Kindle. 
2008- Sony and Adobe agree to share 
technoligies. 
2008- The first e-books appear for iPhone. 
2009- Barnes and Noble releases the Nook.
2010- Bookboon.com announces 10 million downloads of their free e-books in one year.   
In comparison, iTunes sold their 10 billionth song this February.
Technological convergence is a long way away for e-books. 
The devices are still almost prohibitively expensive for most. 
A new competitor Kobo has one of the lowest prices at $149.  The price of about 7 hardcover books or 21 paperbacks.
Unifying devices are in the vogue.
Phones that also play games and act as GPS > GPS, Nintendo DS and a phone.
What's available?

E-reader only:
Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook (Barnes and Nobles), 
Kobo

Devices that can be e-readers :
iPhone, iPod Touch , iPad, Droid, Blackberry 
Windows Mobile  Smartphones
What do they look like?
Behold! The Kindle Killer!
Or Not. 
Far from the first tablet computer on the market. The others never caught on. 
Too heavy for comfortable use while standing. 
Many people dislike that it won't work with Flash. 
It does not multitask as well as it should for a device being sold on that premise. 
No easy to read e-ink display that makes Kindle popular.
Well that's all very interesting....
what about libraries?
Right now, we're stuck because of 
DRM (Digital Rights Management)
DRM was meant to ensure that authors got money and credit for their work. Instead, it's crippling the use of e-books in libraries. 

We use technology to increase ease of use.  How easy is it to get an e-book onto an e-reader for the first time using Overdrive? Has anyone here tried?
Step One: Find a book you're interested in.
Step Two: Add to Cart.
Step Six: Login and checkout your book.
Step Three: Download proprietary software.
Step Four: Install software.
Step Five: Activate the software.
Step Seven: Read!  Unless you don't have the right security update. Or you have a Sony Reader which only allows one format of book on it at the same time. Or unless you have a Kindle because Amazon won't work with it.  And of course, it has to be one of only 2,028 titles provided.
What about Project Gutenberg which doesn't require DRM as all its works are in the public doman?
Step Two: Download.
Step Three: Transfer file to e-reader.
Step Four: Read and enjoy one of the 30,000 available books.
-Flexible screens. 
-Some convergence. 
-Best Guess? 
People will choose to read on      their phones, not e-readers.
-Hybrid books  with some                                                   streaming information.                                                           Think CNN.
 -Books as social media.
X-Library: The Best Mutant Ever?
 -Form larger, more powerful consortiums to negotiate directly with publishers.  
 -Exist both virtually and physically. Service larger areas with a single physical site. 
-For every copy of a physical book purchased, an e-book blinks into existence. 
 -Bring in your super-combined, multitasking device and get an instant download of what's going on at the library that week, when your books are due and a follow up on your last reference question.
Who owns an e-reader?
According to Techcrunchies.com:
Gender ratio : 56.3% men and 43.7% women
Average age : 35-54 years
Average household income : $100K+
Average minimum education : Bachelors’ or Post Graduate
Who owns a smartphone?
According to Nielsen Wire:
Gender Ratio: 58% men and 41% women
Average Age: 25-34 years 
2x as likely than the average cellphone user to have a $100,000+ yearly income.
Smartphones are still predominantly for business use only.
In 2008, the U.S. Census Board 
reported the average median household 
income in Rockland County to be $84,076.
In New York overall, it was $55,980.
The first commercial cellphone emerged
in 1983 and cost $3,995.  In 1985, it was estimated 
that 91,600 people owned a cell phone.
In 2007, 250 million people have a cell.  That's 82% of the population!
(http://www.switched.com/2007/11/14/82-of-americans-own-cell-phones/)
According to the Pew Internet Survey, in 6-9% of household in 2006, owned ONLY a  cell phone.
Libraries need to be early adapters of e-books. 
They may fizzle like Betamax or they may boom 
like VHS. 
E-books also have the advantage of eventually being 
more cost effective. They can't be torn or broken.
What can we do right now?
 -Try new devices as they come out.  
 -Read technology blogs like Gizmado and Wired. 
 -Ask your users what if what devices they read on.   
-Give them printed instructions on how to use Overdrive with their device. 
 -Investigate ways of engaging mobile users with things like Foursquare.
 -Expand our online libraries in any way possible. Limited collections have limited interest.
Presented by Veronica Reynolds
vreynolds@rcls.org / @harahel
Think Radio.
If you want to see this presentation, but 
Prezi makes you dizzy, check out my Slideshare.net
account. Just search for vrutter or go directly there:
http://www.slideshare.net/vrutter/the-present-and-future-of-ebooks
Formats
.txt - The original plain text format, neat 
and simple and can be created using WordPad or
NotePad which come with most computers. 
.html- Another simple, accessible format that can be read
on all computers. 
.pdf- Familar and useful format that can be used with most e-readers. Used by Overdrive. 
.azw - Kindle's format. 
.opf- Open eBook is based on XML and is open for all use.
.mobi- Formatted for reading on a cellphone.  Used by Overdrive
.ePub- Created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) to comply with DRM. Used by Overdrive.
Barnes and Noble is launching a system that 
will allow Nook owners to read any e-book for free
while they are in a physical B and N store.
What about music?
-Whole other kettle of fish. 
-Streaming music websites are taking the stage.
-iPhone applications have increased iTunes hold on the 
music industry. 
-The crackdown on illegal music downloads continues...
    so does the downloading of illegal music. 
--Google cracked down on YouTube videos that violate copyright.
Movies and Television? 
-Except to hear about people giving up cable. 
-Pay to play internet television, Netflix and illegal 
downloads. 
-DRM will make library competition difficult. 
-Do we even want patrons watching streaming video on our 
sites?