Electronic Books: Welcome to a New Era

When people talk about electronic books they might be thinking about those books that you can read with the use of a special portable device or those that can be read on your computer. In both cases, the text of the book will be read in a screen or monitor and it is not in printed format.

This month Amazon launched Kindle, a portable screen that connects to the Internet and displays newspapers, blogs, magazines and books. This isn’t, however, the first of its kind. Ebookwise has had a similar gadget where you can read and store your favorite books. The Portable Reader by Sony has the same purpose. There are other similar devices in the market that provide the same advantages: light screens, portable and versatile machines.

As mentioned before, the other type of e-books are those that you can read directly on your computer screen. It is not necessary to buy another piece of equipment to display these books. Organizations around the world have been working to provide as many free electronic books through the Internet as possible. An example is Project Gutenberg that offers a total of 100,000 electronic books online. Austin Public Library subscribes to NetLibrary, a database that contains 27,000 titles that you can access from the library or from home. To learn more about this particular database, just click here and enjoy your electronic reading!