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Kindle does poorly on college campuses


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It appears unlikely that the Amazon Kindle DX will be making a comeback in most college and graduate school classrooms this fall. Over the past few months, results from the pilot programs have trickled in, with most schools reporting that students were dissatisfied with the device as a classroom tool, and that many students had abandoned the Kindle just a few weeks into the experiment. At some schools, more than half the students surveyed said they wouldn’t recommend the e-reader to friends for use in the classroom, citing the device’s lack of flexibility, slow navigation within readings, and an inadequate file management system.


Thoughts:
One major concern in a library setting is if technology will make books obsolete. This is a good example of the potential limitations of e-books. We often feel the pressure in our libraries to upgrade and push the latest technology without careful consideration of what our main goals currently are. If anything is to replace books, it would have to be made with careful forethought on the user base along with pricing. Most of the drawbacks of the Kindle mentioned here were things that could be fixed in the future versions of Kindle. It may have not been successful in this instance because of usability. I am not making conclusions yet on what format will win in the end. For now, it seems, that books are easier for college students to use.

I included this post as an example of what can happen in an academic or public library that tries to include the latest technology. There are still drawbacks to digital books. Where as you can keep a copy of a book for years on the shelf, some books that are downloaded on an e-reader can be deleted without your consent by the owning company. These initial pilot programs test usability of e-books, but they do not test the long term costs, or effects of using these devices.