Presentation by Erik Stevenson Librarian Plainfield Public Library

E-book readers used computer screens to display text in the past. However, a new technology was invented years ago called E-Ink. E-Ink screens use little capsules underneath the screen that arrange into text when an electrical charge is applied to them. They don’t have backlights—you will need some light to read them. E-readers with E-Ink don’t use electricity when looking a static screen. They only use electricity when “turning” the pages. You don’t have to buy books to read them on the e-readers, any text (.doc,.txt, simple PDFs) can be converted to be read on the e-readers. Why are electronic books better? Searchable within text! Saves costs on printing (especially for textbooks). Saves trees! The Amazon Kindle was the first successful ebook reader.

The first e-book reader to use E-Ink was the Sony Reader in Sony followed up with more models, including a touchscreen version, and a 3G version (called the Daily). The Sony Reader requires a connection to a computer to load books onto it (with the exception of the Daily version). Sony has their own software, “Reader Library,” to manage books on the device. The Sony store has about 50,000 books and about 20 newspapers. Sony has the support of Google Books, which provides hundreds of thousands of more books. Supports epub, PDF, and *.doc files.

Barnes & Noble released the Nook in December The Nook has an E-ink screen and a color touch screen (for navigation). The Nook has 3G and WiFi, and the online store can be accessed these ways. You can put your own books (in epub or PDF format) on the device. Simply plug the device into your computer with the included USB cable and put the book into the “My Documents folder.” The Nook does not support *.doc files. Books on the Nook can be lent to other people with Nooks or the Barnes & Noble ebook software that is available for iPhones, Blackberries, and computers. This applies only to books bought from the store, not your own documents. The Nook can read PDF files, but like the Sony Reader, unless they are simple PDFs, they won’t be easy to view.

Apple released their iPad on April 3, 2010 starting at $500 (for 16 gigabytes). Apple has their own ebook store (with 60,000 books). Apple also supports epub. Amazon has a Kindle app for the device so books bought from the Kindle store can be read. The iPad can read PDFs natively, but can’t read large PDFs. There are other programs that can render large PDFs (like Good Reader). Even though epub is supported, the iPad isn’t supported by Adobe Digital Editions and does not work with ListenNJ ebooks at this time, although it is compatible with the audiobooks available on ListenNJ. Unlike the Kindle, Nook, and Sony Readers with their e-ink screens, the iPad’s LED screen does not work well in direct sun. It does have an auto brightness control which helps reading the dark.

People have been using other devices to read e-books: Cell Phones PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants)‏ Computers Cell phones and PDAs have been used to read e-books for years. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) has been growing in popularity has an e-book reader. The Internet also has e-books, usually as straight text or web page embedded files (Google Books).

How to use ListenNJ with ebook readers To download books from ListenNJ, you will need a device that supports Epub and Adobe Digital Editions software. The Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook are both compatible with ListenNJ. The Amazon Kindle cannot be used at this time since it does not support the format. The iPad cannot be used (even though it supports the epub format) as it does not support the digital rights management embedded in the files. For a list of compatible devices visit According to Overdrive the user must download Adobe Digital Editions from ListenNJ and then register with Adobe. However, the “Reader Library” software that comes with the Sony Reader is capable of managing the downloads from ListenNJ without Digital Editions. If using While the program is running, they must plug their device into the computer while ADE is running. The program should recognize the device. It is then a simple matter of transferring the file to your device. The amount of time remaining (or an “expired” tag) should appear with the title to let you know how much longer you have the title “checked out”.