Remember Arthur Clarke’s observation that you’d most get in trouble for underestimating the eventual progress of technology? Well, from Down Under via the Sidney Morning Herald, here’s an e-book success story that wasn’t supposed to unfold until several years from now:
One week after a small link on Yarra Plenty Regional Library’s website asked users if they might be interested in borrowing their books electronically, Pam Saunders was ready to proclaim that the age of e-books had finally arrived.
In about as much time as it might take to get through a good thriller, 25 library members had signed up for a 12-month trial in which they can download up to three e-books at a time to their Palms and Pocket PCs, or any device that can run the MobiPocket electronic reader. Another 10 had suggested that they’d love to do the same thing, if the library would also lend them a palmtop computer.
For the library, which services outer-suburban communities in Melbourne’s north-east, the tiny grant that Saunders had used to fund the experiment didn’t extend to buying hardware – it barely covered the online collection of 300 titles.
But she says it has revealed a hidden demand for online lending. “What I thought was a few years away is not a few years away. If that many people are willing to join up in one week, it’s starting to happen.”
The story goes on to say that some new Linux e-readers from China will be on the way.
Yarra is using the services of Adelaide-based eInfo Solutions and an Australian version of the Libwise lending system.
(Found via eBookAd.)
