eBook experience
The library website for our capital city area started offering eBooks in July this year. The collection is still quite small and seems to include only non-fiction books at the moment.
I like the idea though. Of course, I wouldn’t read a 400-500-page Stephen King on the computer screen but for example the CSS guide I test-borrowed works better than well as an eBook. (It is a silly beginner’s book but I just wanted to glance through it quickly.)
A downside is that there (currently) is no way to book an eBook (ha ha). The loan periods are 1 day and 7 days (I think I saw 3 days, too) and you see how long a loan lasts, but because the book can be returned before the loan period is over there is no way to anticipate when a book might be available. And often someone snatches it first. That happened with the CSS book. Every time I went to check, the book was loaned for 5 more days or 2 more days. With books that have more than one copy available this isn’t much of a problem.
Can’t complain though, don’t really have a reason to either, because it’s all completely free (except for the electricity) and very convenient.
I try to print out the ebooks – makes for easier reading
In my major lots of the material we have to read for exams and projects is in electronic form so I’m used to reading long texts from the screen. I refuse to spend my ink and paper for printing material I only need for one exam!