Nicholson Baker is back, this time with commentary on the Kindle e-book reader sold through amazon.com.  Though some may know Nicholson from is detail-oriented fiction (The Fermata being but one example), librarians will probably remember him better from his book Double Fold in which he accused librarians of destroying artifactual newspaper collections while microfilming them.  Seeking to save some newspaper collections, Baker put his money where his keyboard was and established the American Newspaper Repository as a preservation service once he uncovered the issue (though his criticism of librarians never grew into a public outcry).  The collection later found a home at Duke University.

Now Baker has published a lengthy, and highly detailed, review of the Kindle device in the New Yorker magazine dated August 3, 2009.  In it, he uncovers some of the Kindle’s useful attributes such as immediate downloading of content and improvements made to issues that plagued the first release of the Kindle.  But Baker points out, in his meticulous style, a dozen (probably more than that, but then it would not be possible to have the catchy title above) concerns with the Kindle reader and presently available content.  Chief among those are: missing or unreadable illustrations, missing content from newspapers (rather ironic, see above!), a gray screen that he found difficult to read, and some screen fade in sunlight.  Baker doesn’t much care for the Kindle, but it is more the device than a dislike of e-books.  In fact, he makes the case that there are other less-popular and well-advertised devices available right now and he argues that the Apple iPod, with a Kindle application installed, is easier to use and no more difficult to read than the Kindle.

There may or may not be significance to libraries here.  But before librarians run out and buy lots of Kindles to loan to their tech-savvy patrons, they may want to consider the rather short lifespan of such technology.  The cutting edge is a precipitous place to be.  It may be a number of years before all the issues tied up in e-books will be sorted.  Worth the wait?  Maybe.  But recall that there are millions of iPods and iPhones already in use.  Technology to beam content into those devices would certainly trump having to purchase new equipment on which to do the same, and be better for the environment at the same time.

Eric C. Shoaf

Editor, LL&M

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