Prepare for the eBook Deluge

I think that it’s a safe prediction that public libraries are going to be overwhelmed with questions about downloading e-books after the holiday gifting season. A whole ton of newbies are going to have a new e-reader or tablet!

Amazon selling more than a million Kindles per week, says demand accelerating for the Fire
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/amazon-selling-million-kindles-week-demand-accelerating-fire-holidays

“Amazon.com today said that it is selling Kindles at a rate of more than one million per week — marking the third consecutive week that it has topped that milestone.

The Seattle online retailer is notoriously quiet about the sales performance of the Kindle, and the latest press release did not break out how individual devices, such as the newly-released Kindle Fire, are performing.

However, Amazon did say that the Fire — launched just 11 weeks ago — is the best selling product on the site.

“Kindle Fire is the most successful product we’ve ever launched – it’s the bestselling product across all of Amazon for 11 straight weeks, we’ve already sold millions of units, and we’re building millions more to meet the high demand,” said Dave Limp, vice president of Kindle. “In fact, demand is accelerating – Kindle Fire sales increased week over week for each of the past three weeks.””

Of course, that article above only talks about Amazon sales. Add to it the Kobo, Nook, Sony Reader, iPad, and all those other tablets and you’ve got a tsunami hitting libraries for New Years.

So, are you prepared?

Are the cheat sheets ready?
Are enough copies at hand?
Are they on your website too?
Have you made simple explanations about format (Kindle, EPUB, PDF, etc.) and device interoperability to hand out?
And have all staff played with enough devices to appear knowledgeable?
Are all staff prepared with the list of clarifying questions to make sure they’re addressing the user’s context and device?
And can you explain the difference between library e-book environments and retail e-books? (I can’t – arrghhhh)
Any more . . .

Lordy, who would have thought simple reading could get so complicated?

Too bad it’s not a decent option to ignore it and still say we care about books and reading.

Stephen