Prompt: Ebooks and Audiobooks

I have only recently (in the past year) begun using ebooks and audiobooks, so my experience is limited. I started listening to audiobooks in my car as an attempt to get more reading done. However, the audiobook is best suited to a different kind of mind, one that is not always thinking very deeply on several topics at once. I will listen well at first, then get distracted by what is going on inside my head (usually prompted by what I just heard) then "wake up" sometime later, wondering where the character with the Scottish accent came from, and what is going on. So I am going to try to stick with books in the car that I have already read so that I know what is going on when this happens to me. At least it's a nice change from radio and my limited music collection.

My husband, on the other hand, is much more of an auditory person than I am. He drives a lot for his job, so it is a challenge for me to keep him in audiobooks. The only complaint I've had so far is if the book is too short. One of my patrons is a local truck driver, and he stocks up on everything from popular bestsellers to YA dystopia. I think he's even tried a vampire fantasy or two. Other patrons have occasionally mentioned that the reader can make or break an audiobook, but mostly our audiobook patrons seem to just want something to listen to while they perform mundane tasks. Length and genre seem to play a bigger role than audio appeal, but then I've never taken any type of survey of them, just what information I've collected from random observation.

Ebooks, for me, do not have the same appeal as an actual book, be it hardback or paperback, but then the old-timers probably said the same thing when the codex started replacing the scroll. I'm sure there are multiple factors that affect others' enjoyment and preference for or against ebooks that have not entered my realm of thinking yet. Personally, I like holding a real book in my hands. I like the pages, the book jackets, the sound of pages turning, and the ability to easily turn back and forth to reread certain parts, check facts and plot, and easily find my place again. All of these factors are in the background and do not interfere with my enjoyment of a story. At first, I did not enjoy the experience of reading an ebook. I was not able to get lost in the story because I was too conscious of the unfamiliarity of the format. Now, the format doesn't bother me as much. What I don't like is the procedures you have to go through if you want to see how far you've come, and especially if you want to go back and re-read a previous area, then find your place again. As far as patrons go we hardly ever see one who is an ebook reader. People with questions about their readers usually get referred to the reference desk, and patrons who check out print books who are ebook readers as well never say anything about needing help finding ebooks, so I have no experience with helping patrons with this type of need yet. I wonder if the appeal of ebooks for some is the same as using the self check-out instead of coming to the circ desk: you don't have to talk to anyone to get what you need.