eBooks and Audiobooks

I absolutely adore the feel and smell of books in my hands; I do not think there is anything that can replace that weight and being able to physically turn pages as I read. However, I recognize the convenience and ever-growing presence of eBooks and audiobooks in the library world, and think that they have merit for those that are interested in the medium out of either convenience or preference.

Speaking to appeal factors of physical books, I believe that there are people that will always prefer physical books in their hands. Some people can just not get past the electronically illuminated screens or a narrator reading for them, regardless of the benefits. There is just something about the printed word and the feel of paper on your hands. However, with eBooks, there are people that are attracted to these, because they can access the book in the comfort of their own home from a retailor or check it out from their local library. In my own library, we have a number of patrons that are homebound and use our eBook collection. Another appeal factor is the convenience of traveling with multiple books and not having to deal with the space or weight issues. An eBook reader could hold thousands of books and not weight more than a few pounds and takes up minimal space. With audiobooks, appeal factors include the ability to utilize time. For instance, many of my patrons listen to audiobooks on long car rides or other commutes where they cannot have a physical book in their hand, but can listen to something. These audiobooks are also available to the home-bound or from the comfort of one’s home.

I personally do not believe that audiobooks and eBooks effect either a librarian or patron’s experience with genres. For one, there are still covers on both that clue readers in to the genre or contents of the book, both still have synopsis available, and quite frankly the length of the book is no longer that good of an indicator for the genre. Often, I have found that genres are no longer contained within length boundaries, so having an eBook, where you cannot discern the heft or pages in a book, makes very little difference to the genre classification.

While I believe that an author sets their line spacing, word font and size, and color based on what they feel paces and represents their book, I have no qualms with a reader being able to change any of these specifications on an eBook reader. I personally feel that the diction of the story should be enough to translate the writers tone and pace, and the personalization option benefits by far outweigh the disadvantages. For starters, the cost alone that libraries save when providing eBooks with changeable fonts. I am in charge of collection development for my library, and I can say confidently that quite often large print novels cost 25% or more for purchase than their original print counterparts. In my own library, this severely limits the number of large prints that I can buy, and consequently those that require large print novels are limited to their selections. With personalization options, patrons can get whatever book they want, and be able to access it in the way they need it.

In concern to audiobooks, I just recently discovered that you could change the pace of the narrator and speed up how fast the audio is. I never knew this before, and this is often my problem with audiobooks. I feel that I could read much faster than they are speaking, and consequently it takes me longer to get through a book. Further, I find my mind wandering if the narrator’s pace is not on par with my comprehension speed. I have known quite a few patrons that feel this way, however, with services that are now offering more personalization options than ever, I believe that audiobooks will become more relevant and popular. The only disadvantage with audiobooks is that for patrons that cannot access them electronically and still prefer CD’s, they are relatively expensive. This effects a library’s ability to have as many audiobook choices as they do physical books.

Overall, I believe that the choice between audiobooks, eBooks, and physical books just boils down to preference, and there is no reason that one over the other would need to be chosen. I know personally that I prefer to read physical books whenever possible, but read eBooks on vacation or when traveling, and listen to audiobooks in the car.