DACS General Meeting
October 2010
Meeting Review:
E-book Readers

By Richard Corzo

This is definitely the year of the electronic book readers. Of course, the Amazon Kindle has been out since 2007. The Sony Reader, sitting quietly in the background, was actually introduced in 2006. Barnes and Noble came out with their Nook late last year. And this year Apple introduced their iPad, which has the iBook app and iBookstore. So with all these choices longtime DACS member Bruce Preston couldn’t have been timelier with his presentation on e-book readers.

Bruce explained that there are two display technologies: reflective, low-power E Ink used by the dedicated readers and LCD used by the iPad. Downloading of electronic books can be through a USB connection, Wi-Fi, or 3G wireless.

Then, there are different e-book formats to consider. ePub is widely supported except on the Kindle. Amazon’s Kindle books are mostly supported only on the Kindle device but can also work on more general-purpose devices like the iPad through a Kindle app. PDF documents are universally supported, and some devices support text, HTML, or Word documents.

If necessary, you can convert documents using an application like the free Calibre (http://www.calibre.org), which runs on Windows, a Mac, or on Linux. Calibre can also be used as an e-reader and to download free books.

With e-book readers you can subscribe to magazines and newspapers as well.

Bruce also demonstrated the text-to-speech feature on the Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad. This is handy for the sight-impaired and you can even adjust the speed to get through a book faster.

Bruce also showed us a Sony Reader, which is the third device he owns, and offered his impressions of the Nook, which he had a chance to try. He mentioned that you might be able to try out some of these reader devices at your local library.

It was great for Bruce to explain all the options in the marketplace, and of course very timely with the holidays coming up!