The E library (Yes 22 )

Many times when I've been introducing folk to the library website after signing up, I've been surprised how few know of the ACL's investment in digital resources. Some have become regulars on international web journals and newspapers and several have passed pleased comments back on their experiences. But I have been guilty of totally ignoring the net library- mea culpa, I thought it was minimal and not interesting. Today my opinion did a 180 turn....
One of the first surprises was a toddler's delightful counting book- "20 Hungry Piggies". I had no idea little ones' books featured.The next one was a book on creative writing so made that one of my favourites so I can go back to it. (I discovered how easy it was to mark an item as a favourite!) I did try out the search facility after some more study, but rapidly found out I could access more non fiction than otherwise. It would be great if patrons asked for a Frommer's guide to Cuba to tell them thay can read it through librarynet.The number of "How to...," books stopped me in my research-now have a "Simple Bloggers guide" marked as a favourite also.
The login is simple enough with a library card. I have to compliment the webdesigners on the "user friendliness" of the site. The set up showing a search platform is familiar to library users, and the simplicity of scrolling to find books in alphabetical order, plus the click on cover to pop up the relevant book impressed. If I have one moan, it would be that at home I do not have broadband,(hence doing this before Task 21) so I found detailed colour pages of covers or illustrated books, eg. like the superb 20 Hungry Piggies, took a long time to load.

Earlier in the day I had made a few notes through reading Librarything and the paper about the Amazon Kindle so I checked further into that. The thought of being able to load a bestseller in a minute amazes me! The name comes from the wish to "ignite knowledge" which I thought appropriate. The facility to hold 200 digital books and to be able to use the kindle directly without a tether to a pc or wireless hook makes it a word version of an ipod.Unfortunately, there's a hefty price (NZ$528)plus a price for downloading each item from Amazon. It will be interesting to follow that technology. The fact that Dymocks Australia last week launched a website containing 120,000 ebooks could be relevant. I smiled when I saw someone from ACL 2.0 had added the kindle it to our site...my surprise blown!