Thursday, March 4, 2010

Yay for Libraries!!

So, remember that Sony Reader I won back in January? Well, we received it around Valentine's Day, as well as a $100 credit for books. We picked out a couple books to try it out with, and were happy with how it works. The thing I had been most hoping for, however, was to be able to check out ebooks.

There are several competing readers out there these days. The Kindle is the one people all hear about, but I was surprised to discover that the only one that is compatible with what your library has available is the Sony Reader. I'm going to put my money on the Sony for this reason only, and I hope it wins out in this war (or the other Readers rectify this issue).

I went to try this out right away. Unfortunately for me, I had tossed my library card in the move. Oliver still has his, but he's never used it online. We actually used to use mine for pretty much everything as I was the one who kept tabs on due dates online. So, we emailed the library and  begged for his password and the ability to use it online. Nicely, they sent the information, and I gave it a try tonight.

Two ebook downloads later, I'm so excited about this! This is huge for us. The only "library" here is a room full of books that you can borrow (or keep, as no one monitors it), or leave some of your own. That's it. There is no librarian, nor a budget to buy new books. So, if you want a book, you pretty much have to buy it. Now, we have another option I thought lost to us while we lived here: the library!

I will give Sony a free plug for this one. If you are in the market for an ereader and are considering another one, don't buy it. Get the Sony and use your library. Trust me, you will be grateful (although maybe not as much as I am right now, haha).

2 sonar pings:

Carrie Stuart said...

That's awesome! Another plug for the Sony Reader...the Amazon Kindle has very limited use in Japan. (We run into all kinds of problems with different media over here...DVDs that aren't compatible, online content that's not available...and apparently, Kindle books that are not available in this market.) I hear that the Sony does not have the same issues, though...not sure why that is.

Ana said...

They use a different type of coding, is the way I understand it. My best guess is it is because Sony uses something that is sort of free (the ebooks I'm getting are also viewable on the computer using Adobe). I once thought I wanted a Kindle, but it does seem limited.