The Kindle will have to wait for me. Library still wins for now.
photo credit: Svadilfari
Baltimore Sun ran a story today about how local library usage was up now that we’re all broke for the 2009 recession. I thought that kind of interesting since last week, I went down to the North Asheville branch for the first time in a year. It brought me back to my 20’s when I was dead broke washing dishes at the local steak house. I didn’t have a phone or TV, so my Library was a fantastic resource. I even ‘checked out’ a painting each week in addition to books, cd’s and videos.
In current times, I like to think of myself as fairly cutting edge. I usually like to jump on “second generation” products. For instance. When the iPhone came out, I was pretty sure I would by the next version of the phone to come out. To me, that let’s the price settle a bit. It also lets them work out any bugs. So when the first generation Kindle came out, I was tremendously interested. I was sure the $300+ price tag would come down and the technology would get better with the second version. Well the current Kindle still costs an arm and a leg and only has marginal better technology. It’s such a shame because I would find its features so useful.
One feature of the Kindle that would help me so much is the built in dictionary and wiki access. I’m currently reading “Vodka Neat” by Anna Blundy, and all the various Russian references sometimes send me for a spin. I often fantasize about how lovely it would be to read this book on a Kindle.
The Kindle is this fantastic idea. You can see it as a problem solver. Paper is saved. Waste is reduced. Gas is conserved. Reading books will be more interactive. You could also rent books from the Library right over the internet. There’s so much to look forward to, yet there’s so much in the way. Economy of scale hasn’t kicked in yet. Authors who don’t understand the device are suing left and right over dumb things like ‘read to me’ features.
But that’s that. With electronic books costing 10 bucks a pop and a prohibitively expensive device, I’ll just have to wait. It seems that Apple may finally come out with it’s “jumbo iPod Tablet thinger” this year. In addition. Google may be striking up deals to feature it’s scanned book library on a new Android-like device. I’m hopeful. People like me have to be patient while all the fanboys and early adopters waste their money on overly priced products so we can buy them as a commodity at a later date.