E-Books: Thing 22

I have spent time while on the information desk exploring these three e-book sites and have walked out patrons through downloading them, which can only be at home. The biggest, most important differences are:

• Net Library is more focused on supporting academics in the schools, so Cliff's Notes and other academic supports abound, which thrills our students who call from home. There are other types of materials, as well, and all are easily accessible (the most easily accessible of the three types of e-books). Just click on the title, and up comes the contents page and the first page of text. Net Library is supported by OCLC.
  
• Project Gutenberg is the oldest e-books effort, having been started in 1971 by Michael Hart, who is still involved in the project. It traditionally has run on volunteer effort, and because there are bids for donations and volunteer help on the homepage, I believe that still holds true. Project Gutenberg has the most eclectic collection of books of the e-books sites, as it carries books in many languages as well as older books and classics.
  

• Maryland's Digital eLibrary Consortium is responsible for Maryland's Digital eLibrary site. This collection contains e-books, videos, both educational and entertainment, and audio books. Downloading is required, so this is the least accessible of the e-books. The downloading must be done at home, as library computers are programmed not to download anything. Most confusion about ebooks surrounds this collection.

Personally, I have used an ebook only once (for LATI), as I prefer to read paper books.

Jean