The Way of the Future for "books"?

A reader used to be a person who read books, though there are various other uses and meanings for the word. See below.

Would you prefer holding a book of paper, hard boards & glue in your hand?

Have you ever held or read from an ereader?

Do you read books online?

Do you think books on paper are on their way out?

The librarians at Massey University in Auckland are probably of two minds this week as they shift the entire collection to shelves in the new library extension.

With so many electronic reader appliances available, it's difficult to compare and choose well. Peruse the chart by clicking on the photo and see what might suit you. iPhones and other smart gadgets also serve as ereaders but are not dedicated to that task.

Prices range from $249 to $489US but you can carry hundred of books in the same amount of space, on the memory of these gadgets.

When I consider how much I've spent over the years on shelves, shipping, book bags, even on bookmarks! It might pay off to carry it all in one slim reader.

In addition to Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other big name sites where you can

buy books, here's a list of sites where you can download free ebooks.

See a previous post on Conversations@Intersections on ebooks.

BELOW:

Noun	1.	reader - a person who enjoys reading bookworm - someone who spends a great deal of time reading bookman, scholar, scholarly person, student - a learned person (especially in the humanities); someone who by long study has gained mastery in one or more disciplines
	2.	reader - someone who contracts to receive and pay for a service or a certain number of issues of a publication subscriber
	3.	reader - a person who can read; a literate person decipherer - a reader capable of reading and interpreting illegible or obscure text literate, literate person - a person who can read and write map-reader - a person who can read maps; "he is a good map-reader" skimmer - a rapid superficial reader
	4.	reader - someone who reads manuscripts and judges their suitability for publication reviewer, referee critic - anyone who expresses a reasoned judgment of something
	5.	reader - someone who reads proof in order to find errors and mark corrections proofreader
	6.	reader - someone who reads the lessons in a church service; someone ordained in a minor order of the Roman Catholic Church lector
	7.	reader - a public lecturer at certain universities lecturer, lector
	8.	reader - one of a series of texts for students learning to read school text, schoolbook, text edition, textbook, text - a book prepared for use in schools or colleges; "his economics textbook is in its tenth edition"; "the professor wrote the text that he assigned students to buy"