First, I must admit that over the years, I have wavered between excitement and skepticism regarding the development and adoption of electronic book readers. Initially, I was swayed by the living-in-the-future aspect of electronic books, but I wasn't interested in sitting in front of a monitor to read one. I tried reading ebooks on a PDA, but the screen was too small and at the time, there weren't many books to choose from.
I work in a university library, and we often have funding set aside for purchasing new technology for the staff to experiment with, or at the very least, be familiar with in case any of our users need assistance with their own devices. This past summer, I had the opportunity to play with an Amazon Kindle 2 for a few weeks. It didn't win me over to the ebook camp, but I was rather pleased with having access to download more reading material while on the go, even though that doesn't happen often enough to make it a necessity.
The Kindle 2 was interesting, but what got me really excited was the iPhone/Touch ebook reader demo I saw shortly after my experimentation with the Kindle. The screen was bright, the text was sharp, and the device light enough to comfortably hold in one hand while flipping pages with my thumb. It didn't have all of the functionality of a dedicated device, but it was good enough for something that could fit in my pocket and be able to do so much more than just provide textual information.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to try out one of the new ebook reader devices from Sony. When the Sony Reader Touch (PRS-600) arrived, I tried not to get too excited about it just because it's new-to-me technology, but it was hard not to. The fact that it looks a bit like a PADD from Star Trek: The Next Generation added to my geeky excitement.
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