School 2.0 in SA

I attended a librarians’ conference last week and at some stage we got into a discussion about wether or not reading books online will ever take off. After thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that I was in any case doing most of my reading online. I still love books and I don’t think this will ever change, but I definitely do not have a lot of time to actually read a saucy novel curled up in bed or on the sofa. The “sad” reality of my life is that I am mostly curled up with my laptop, reading blogs and articles and bookmarking them for distribution to my learning networks. The only time I get to indulge myself (and it is a specific treat for me now) is when I visit my house in Hogsback (paradise). There you just have to sit in front of the fireplace with a good book or go and read it next to the stream or something!

I am trying to get my mind around actually reading whole books online and set out to see what is available. I was inspired to find a treasure cove of goodies online. In the past I have mainly downloaded ebooks in PDF format for offline reading. I on principle never print ebooks, as it is a far more costly exercise as actually buying the book and having that fresh book smell welcoming you every time you turn a page. I must also admit to never actually reading a whole book online, just snippets of text here and there for use in papers and articles. If there is anyone who would read a book online, surely it will be me?

So I have decided to investigate some book options and am busy making a listing of all free e-book sites for our  new librarians blog (see lists there) . I could not believe the variety and depth of free e-book collections from all over the internet. You can download books in a variety of formats from audiobooks to photobooks and more. You can subscribe to get a book delivered in your e-mail inbox on a daily basis in smallish chunks and of course, you can buy a Kindle or read books on your cellphone for those wasteful occasions where you are forced to spend time stuck in a que.

While I was busy with my investigations my learning network friends @rashkath and @russeltarr shared some books with me. The one book was made by a grade 3 teacher for/by her class. I like the page turning effects worked into the site….

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

So what do you think? Should we start burning our dusty books yet?