Good, color PDAs might go for $75 new with OLED tech in use, I suggested earlier.
Actually, if a Staples is close and if the price I saw in a Jan. 4 ad insert in the Washington Post applies in your town, you might be able to pick up a brand-new Sony Clie PEG-SJ22 with a sharp 320 x 320 transflective color screen, 16M of RAM and a Memory Stick slot for all of $99.98 after a $30 mail-in rebate. In plain English, that means the screen won’t be huge but will suffice for many readers. Also you can hold a small number of e-books at once in your PDA and can buy more memory later on. Meanwhile you can use your PC to store books and download them from the Net.
Just a special? Yes (“while supplies last”). But this post-holiday sale is a preview of regular prices in the future for similar technology. I couldn’t find the same deal at Staples.com, but maybe that’ll change tomorrow.
I hope a big point here will come through. PDA are like calculators, with prices ever lower, and libraries and their users can take advantage of this. In early 2003 the same Clie was commonly selling for $200.
Idea for public libraries: Perhaps you can catch up with vendors and come up with innovative ways to help the people most in need of library e-books find the right hardware for reading them. The Clie is just one example of the possibilities. It’s hardly the perfect hardware for e-books and isn’t for everyone, but it’s far better than nothing at all. Just imagine the wealth of e-books for free on the Net–and even the possibility of libraries offering current best-sellers for free.
Time for Friends of the Library-type groups to work with schools and do mass buys, with some advice and follow-up help from local computer clubs, which might supply tech support? Perhaps different club members could help cover different library branches, especially those near them. Many large computer clubs have specal interest groups deaing with handhelds–some may even meet in libraries. Friends groups might also help with fund-raising to buy the units, either for the library to give away or to lend out. With enough qualified volunteers–hardly a given!–the time demands on already-busy library staffers could be reduced.
Just like the Sony Clie, this approach isn’t for everyone. It’s simply something to consider in library districts where the interest is there among readers, library staffers and potential volunteers.
The format angle: If your library does consider contemporary e-books from commercial distributors, see what electronic formats are available–and whether they’ll work out on the most affordable PDAs.
Update, 5:52 pm., Jan. 3: Just back from Staples, where, aided by a $25 gift certificate from my in-laws, I bought my own Clie SJ22. My total cost, minus taxes and in anticpation of the rebate: around $75, or about the same as three undiscounted hardbacks. The thing is charging now. More tomorrow. Just to answer the obvious, the store where I bought the Clie is apparently used to dealing with people who get their newspaper inserts early. I lucked out. Two other Staples stores, called earlier, didn’t even have the SJ22s in stock yet. Meanwhile I’ve just joined the Clie_Users Group list–and have remind myself of the wealth of model-specific resources that are available to PDA owners if they can find them. Yet another possibility: ClieSource, compelte with a handy, just-posted item about memory sticks.
