Last Saturday (16/1/2015), The Sydney Morning Herald did a short feature on the rise of eBook collections in public libraries in Sydney. Sydney City Council now claims to have 10 000 eBooks in its collection.
It also claims that more people are joining libraries in response, encouraged by the convenience of iPads and Kindles as a reading tool, and existing members are borrowing more regularly which is encouraging news.
But the article fails to mention the percentage of eBook loans in comparison to loans of printed items. There are definitely some that have been attracted to borrow because items are now available as eBooks and don't have to lug a printed book around, or is it merely because people want to read something in print? Or perhaps did reading something in a digital form encourage them to pursue reading in a printed format.
Also have loans of printed items increased? We don't get that figure either.
Looking on the positive side, it is good though to see people making use of their local libraries and their collections, while at the same time developing their interest in reading. As I do believe, some are more suited to reading items digitally as opposed to print. Everyone has their style of learning and therefore everyone has their way of reading.
And what if one cannot access that printed copy of a book that they want to read at a particular point in time - at least an electronic version will fill that need, unless they really want that tactile version.
What about in a classroom situation? There will be no longer an excuse to not have bought a book to class, especially if the school library has its own eBook collection. I would be encouraging my students as well to pursue membership of their local library, not just for their digital collections, but also their print collections. Every library in every council area has its own unique collection of books. From holding accounts with four councils, I am often coming across items that are "exclusive" to that collection and have read some very interesting books that I may have not come across. I even want to recommend them for my school library!!! I might make that a challenge for this year in my work.
