I've been wondering this myself! Hopefully somebody with more e-reader/technology knowledge will stop by. The library nearest to my home has started offering e-reader rentals as well. It's an interesting idea, I like it for the accessibility of having a vast array of books available to you at any point in time.
It's not like you can calculate how long the battery will last when the librarians loan it out. If they use it a lot, the battery will die quickly. But if it's not used very often, obviously the battery would last longer. Perhaps there's some remote trigger? I don't know. Yeah, but how many of those books are you going to be reading simultaneously? I understand having a lot of music on a device at once because once 5 minute song is up you can listen to another. But you can't finish a book in 5 minutes, it's a journey.
That's a good point. Maybe it comes with a charger, or if you use it often enough you might as well just buy one. The advantage comes with reading a book you've never read before, and finding out that you're not enjoying the read. Then instead of having to return to the library, bring back that book and find something else, you can simply select something else.
Yeah it's a really interesting thing. Next time I'm at the library I'll ask. Haha that's very true. I'd try to stick it out 'till the end though. You never know with some books. I didn't like A Picture of Dorian Gray at first, but after about half of it, I came around.
As would I, but a good amount of people won't have the patience to sit through ~130 pages of a book before they start to get enjoyment out of it.
You do have a point. But does allowing them to jump around from book to book really help the patience issue? I'm not trying to cause a ruckus, just trying to prove a point.
I'm enjoying talking to you about this. I think it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, promoting patience and reading entirely through a book is a great thing, and something that should be pushed. On another hand, you might have a person be turned off from reading if it's a book they're not enjoying. That's more a high school situation though where you're forced to read a book, I'd imagine a person renting an e-reader from a library wouldn't have that issue. That said, I agree with you in that allowing people to jump around does not help with patience, not at all. It does help with exploring new content though.
I'd imagine a person renting an e-reader from a library wouldn't have that issue.
That is a very good point. A person renting an e-reader from a library already has an interest and desire to read books, so they're already more likely to finish an entire book.