The new Kindle Fire is aptly named. It's a book burning ember ready to strike.
This is totally my suddenly-formed and not fact-checked opinion:
Post-Christmas week and back at my small town library, over half the conversations I had with customers centered on "How do I do my new Kindle?' Every single one of my best patrons, as we call our library customers, now has one. They will soon not need me anymore. Whaaa!
But I will retire soon, so don't spend your morning feeling sympathy for me. :-) It's just an interesting story ... and that's why I have to write it.
Librarians, as a group, are intelligent, focused, modern defenders of our democracy's rights. We are a force to be reckoned with if the government should seek to curtail your right to read or to have access to modern and ancient thinking. (It's part of what makes America great.) A force to be reckoned with, yes. But, if you are Google/Amazon, you might see it as a force to be used to your own best advantage. What if? ... call me crazy here ... but what if we use librarians as a free tech support system? ... hmmmm. Unbeknownst to them, we could use tax-supported capable people to explain our new product to millions. They could do all the day-to-day troubleshooting and answer the stupid questions.
In mid-2010, Barnes and Noble took the library world up on its desire to purchase ebooks and let patrons check them out for 'free'. Amazon said, "no way". B&N encouraged publishers to sell the rights for any book that the library consortium could afford. People who bought a Nook soon figured out that their hometown librarian would not only help them check out ebooks for 'free', but would also sit down and help them figure out the dang machine. She would find out (even if it took hours and involved calling State Library tech support), and spoon feed them, the answer to any little question they had about the Nook, et al. Christmas came, and everyone in the know chose a Nook over a Kindle. Free! The key word to sell Nooks.
So, before Christmas, 2011, Amazon had thought it through and was ready to embrace the 'free ebooks from your library' idea. Kindle now supports this! And Kindle has figured out how to twist the whole thing even more to its advantage than B&N ever dreamed. Amazon makes you get an Amazon account as your base for this activity. A special account where they glom onto all your information. Google/Amazon knows you better than you know yourself now - they tailor ads to your desires. Amazon's website is more user friendly for the customer than B&N was. Amazon uses "free library checkouts" as an ad. Amazon lowered the price of an ebook reader before Christmas. It was THE gift this year. Every grandfather got one from the kids, every wife got one from her husband, every independent person got one from himself.
My customers tend to love me and feel free to ask me anything. They know I won't have an attitude. I won't ignore their question, no matter how minute. So, guess where they all headed as soon as we opened Tuesday, Kindle in hand? (By 'me' I mean the average librarian). Amazon had to answer virtually no annoying questions. The patrons saved them all for me.
My checkouts of real books plummeted. Ebooks are better (as soon as people get comfortable with them). The print size can be changed. It can all be done from home. It's a conversation piece for lonely grandpas all over America.
And Amazon/Google gets to know your habits even more intimately!
And my job will soon be erased, by that pesky book burner Kindle Fire.
I still prefer books, with paper pages, that I can actually burn if disaster strikes and I need a fire to keep warm. I like real books to line my shelves and provide insulation for the house. I like cover art. I like the big glossy colourful pages of an art book. I like a book I can accidentally sit on without breaking the damn thing. My daughter was in a royal funk/depression because she accidentally knelt on her Kindle and broke the screen this Christmas. You might break the spine of a book but you can still read the story. Still, I can see the usefulness of one for travelling, or for replacing a hefty story that could crush one's chest while trying to read it in bed. And at the beach?? Sand up your Kobo? Not good.
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