Tag: ebooks

Coming to a library near you? The Joy of Holds + Recommendations for eBooks

The very first library to get a copy of TROUBLE WITH PARSNIPS. Thank you Florham Park Public Library!

Today–all my friends who love libraries–I’m going to tell you a secret that will make you very happy.

HOLDS

If you are a library regular, you probably know you can put a “hold” on an exciting new book. You can do the same thing with ebooks.

After the ebook you requested is returned, it can be automatically be checked out to you. (Unless you have too many books checked out–then you have to return something first. So if you normally have too many books checked out, don’t take the automatic check out option.)

Screen shot of "Place a Hold" button next to Megan Whalen Turner's THE THIEF in Overdrive.
6 months wait time for Megan Whalen Turner’s THE THIEF. It’s worth it. (Not middle grade.)

In the days of paper lists, a dear friend always asked to be added to the list for whatever book everyone was waiting for. Now that’s using your library!

BTW, don’t you LOVE getting those library emails that a book is waiting for you? A major holiday!

But wait, there’s more. . . .TA DA!!!!!

RECOMMENDATIONS

You can recommend ebooks the library doesn’t own yet. This is perfect for that wonderful book on Twitter that you’ll forget the title before you can buy a copy.

How to recommend an ebook from your computer:
1. Brute force method: Login to your local libary online. Find Overdrive. Type the title into Overdrive’s search box. If the library doesn’t own it, you can click on the red or orange “Recommend”. (See below for an example ;)) Your favorite authors will thank you forever!!

2. Elegant-if-it-works method: Click on the image below to go to the Overdrive site. “Find your Library” and if they don’t have the book, you can click on “show me books my library doesn’t own”. Then Overdrive should offer you the book with a “Recommend” button.

screenshot of Trouble With Parsnips bookcover and Recommend button and Read a Sample button
If your local library doesn’t have my book, you can recommend it on Overdrive with one click. Thanks for the boost! Of course this works for Megan Whalen Turner’s newest too. 🙂

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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.

8 Ways Books are Better Than Scrolls: eBooks of the Ancient World

book cover of Libraries in the Ancient WorldWhile trying to figure out how ancient books were repaired, I came across the delightful Libraries in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson. It’s a small, friendly sort of book, clearly written and even the black and white illustrations are fascinating.

If you asked for a book in an ancient library, a page would bring you a bucketful of rolled-up parchment or papyrus with tags on them. You’d sit down and rummage through to find the chapter you wanted to read.

Chapter 8: From Roll to Codex is all about how a change in reading technology affects readers. What did the change mean for book lovers of long ago?

  1. Good for travel–no fragile edges to crumble, no tags to fall off and get lost.
  2. Space-saving–Carry more information in a smaller space because the writers can use both sides of the paper. Twice the capacity. 🙂
  3. Read with one hand–a scroll takes two hands: one to unroll and one to re-roll.
  4. Bookmarks–mark any page or even any line.
  5. Find information quickly–just flip to the page, no more endless scrolling.
  6. “Public libraries had to adjust” to the new format. Instead of cubbies holding three layers of scrolls max, books could be stacked up on top of each other.
  7. “Standard” took a while–Casson gives the example of a book that had quires–the smaller bundles of pages sewn together to make a book–in all different sizes: 5-sheet, 4-sheet, 1-sheet, 5-sheet, 5-sheet, 8-sheet.
  8. Authors had to advertise or explain the new format. Some things never change. 🙂

This little slender book, at Tryphon’s store,

costs just four coppers, and not a penny more.

Is four too much? It puts you in the red?

Then pay him two; he’ll still come out ahead.

–Casson, Lionel. Libraries in the Ancient World, Yale University Press, 2001, pg. 104.

Sound familiar?

Casson studied Egyptian literature by era to see how many were scrolls and how many were codices (books as we know them). Christians were early adopters of the new books. Bibles were made only as codices from the 2nd or 3rd centuries on.

bar chart showing % books versus scrolls by century in Egyptian 'finds'.
By studying Egyptian ‘finds’, Lionel Casson figured out how long it took Egyptian readers to adopt the ‘codex’–the book form–over a roll of parchment or papyrus: about 400 years.

Just for fun, compare to these e-book adoption percentages for U.S. readers (17%, 23%, 28%) and the increase in tablet use for reading:

 

There’s a great photo of a 7th century wooden writing tablet with ten leaves (pg. 127). It looks like a stack of pioneer school child slates fastened together. Here’s an example from Pinterest to give you the idea.

Heavy-duty.

If that’s what a notebook was like, no wonder everyone wanted parchment books instead.

Hope you enjoyed this field trip to the ancient world!

Happy reading and writing!

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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share new middle grade fiction, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.