‘When every student has a Kindle’: Temple U librarian repeats DLC mistake
When, just when, will certain educators and librarians stop getting so fixated on brand names—or even with particular form factors?
Repeating the DLC’s “Kindle in Every Backpack” mistake now is Steven Bell—writing in Library Journal. He’s associate university librarian at Temple University,
What I did like in the Bell column: Mention of the possibility of helping students buy books. Of course, as the 1984/Animal Farm fiasco shows, there’s the issue of whether they’ll “own” their books for real.
(Via elektrolese).
September 7th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Methinks you’re letting your usual Amazon hypersensitivity skew things.
His reference to Kindle is mainly because they are the current buzzword for ereaders.
As he goes on to say:
“…having their own Kindle or some sort of e-reader device for their books…”
and
“Now that Sony has announced its latest entry into the ebook market expect some good competition between two opposing platforms. The winner is usually the consumer who benefits from lower prices and more choice.”
As the ereader market matures it is doubtful that Amazon’s Kindle will remain the “top dog” in the hardware market but the term Kindle could well become the ereader equivalent of “Kleenex” or “Crescent wrench” or “iPod” – a trademarked brand name used as a widespread generic term.
September 7th, 2009 at 11:41 am
But HG, the title told where his focus was—even with the caveat. Beyond that, we need to think about other form factors rather than think the Kindle and Sony’s FF is for all. Thanks. David
September 7th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
This is _Library_ Journal?
“you can by 2000 DX devices”
Wow, don’t they have editors? Or they all got replaced by a spellchecker?
September 8th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, I guess that “DX” is shorter than saying “large-format e-reader.” Taking a term from the photography business, maybe “LF” should enter our vocabulary for the 8+ inch readers so that “DX” doesn’t win buy (he he) default.