Libraries checking out e-book phenomenon

BREMERTON — E-book, Kindle, Nook, iPad. The marketing hype is bombarding consumers and publishers as tech companies push the evolution of reading from paper to pixels.

The jury is out on whether e-readers will be a dominant force that forever changes how people read, but there's a lot of public discussion on buying e-books and e-readers.

But what if you're a Kitsap Regional Library (KRL) user, or an Olympic College student who doesn't want to buy your books? Can your Kindle get books from the library?

Sort of. As the system exists now, choice is limited, and several technological hurdles are yet to be scaled, librarians said.

That doesn't mean libraries aren't thinking about the changing technology.

"We need to be on the cutting edge, but not the bleeding edge," KRL Director Jill Jean said.

Libraries with shrinking budgets are mostly taking a wait-and-see approach to the e-book phenomenon, but they have waded in a little.

KRL has about 800 digital titles available for loan and Olympic College has about 7,000.

But technology remains a hurdle. Some e-readers and e-books match up like square pegs and round holes.

At issue are varying file formats and digital walls built into some e-readers, which allow or disallow certain books to be read on certain devices.

"The Kindle, it just works with Amazon's things," said Michelle Will, who is in charge of buying digital material for KRL's collection.

If publishers and e-reader manufacturers eventually settle on a standard file format, librarians say, lending would be much simpler. (Currently, the Sony readers work best with KRL titles, librarians said. You can also read the e-books on your computer.)

"There are no institutional models set up for these yet," said Greg Raschke, who is in charge of a pilot program at North Carolina State University that lends e-readers to students.

Right now, Google, Apple and Amazon are in a fight to determine which format will prevail. Everyone else is waiting for the dust to settle.

There's also the issue of money.

Will said KRL's collection of e-books will build following patron demand — as more people ask for e-books, more of the budget will flow that direction. But the different file formats force the library to buy multiple versions of each e-book.

Given the uncertainty about e-reader popularity and the stability of file formats, "we sort of have to wait and see," Jean said. "We can't just throw dollars down the drain."

Another issue confronting librarians grappling with the new technology is piracy. Concerns over that issue are among the reasons some e-books are locked into certain devices.

Olympic College Dean of Library-Media Ruth Ross said a balance must be struck between the need to offer media in formats that are easy to loan out on e-readers, and the need to make sure authors and publishers are still able to make money.

"The good stuff isn't free," she said, "and the libraries are paying for it for you."

Raschke dreams of someday having the chance to convince Amazon boss Jeff Bezos of the role of libraries in making e-readers more mainstream.

"I could convince him that libraries are a great incubator," he said.