"if someone bought you an eReader like the Amazon Kindle would you read books on it?" 64% responded "what's an eReader?"And this is not an illiterate population either. The reading habits of the tweens surveyed (defined in the article as ages 8-15) warmed the cockles of my withered and blackened little librarian's heart. Makes me wonder if ebooks are really the tsunami of the future or just an additional medium that will take its place alongside paper books and audiobooks.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Tweens on E-Readers
EarlyWord found this one. I've done a lot of babbling over at KTLA about e-picture books and some on here about eARCs, but this is just the kind of thing we should hear before we start talking about doing away with all the treekilling. In a column at YPulse entitled, Checking the Pulse: Tweens and Books, this question was mentioned:
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2 comments:
Hmmm. As a kid, I would've said "what's a cell phone?" A few years ago "what's an MP3 player" woulda been a common statement (among any age)... pre iPod.
In other words, while I don't know that e-readers are the tsunami that some predict nor do I think that the book itself is near death's door, I actually think it's impressive that it's only 64% who say "what's an e-reader" considering the small footprint they have in the market at this point.
I love books, too. I also loved LPs and tapes and CDs, but I still enjoy music in other ways, ya know?
Working with kids who need (not want, but need) large print books I love how eReaders allow a reader to increase the font size (for Kindle up to 20 point.)
This has a huge potential, for allowing a kid to read the books their friends do. And in a device that doesn't mark them as "different." Right now, a small fraction of books are made in large print, so the only option for a reader is to use an accessible device (big, expensive, marks one as different) or to take the book apart and to copy it at an increased version (marks one as differnet, isn't easy or quick.)
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