Week Eleven Prompt Response - Ebooks and Audio Books

Ebooks
I am relatively new to the world of ebooks. I had never used one up until a few years ago when my now wife opened my eyes to the convenience of having multiple books at your fingertips for long trips. Last Cyber Monday, Amazon had a pretty good sale for the basic kindle, so I got one for myself, and while I don't use it often and prefer the physical books, it is still nice to have for the convenience factor alone. From my experience (not working as a librarian), I think a change in appeal factor for an ebook would be the fact that you cannot physically feel how big or small a book is. I know that my own brain will weigh in on my choice of book to read if it is a hefty, massive book, for instance, and that subtle bias disappears since that MASSIVE Stephen King book now weighs hardly anything at all. While not a MAJOR shift, I think that is one to point out.

I'm not so sure that the changing of the font, spacing, or text color would be a major appeal factor change. It seems to be just another way in which ebooks are more convenient and a personal preference taste. It does open up ebooks to meet the needs of more audiences, as enlarging the print could be a huge benefit for someone who has vision problems, for instance. I know my wife will read on her kindle while she is working out on the elliptical at the gym because she can set it on the display in front of her without having to hold it open, and she makes the font a larger size to be able to read easier as her head moves in sync with the machine. 

Audio Books
Audio books are a completely new world to me. I have listened to one whole story (Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury to be precise) in my life on audiobook, and that was only because I had a 12 hour car ride back from my best friends bachelor party in Nebraska and was running out of options to stay awake. I will say, I was pleasantly surprised at the experience, and would definitely consider it again for solo road trips, but that is about the extent of the ways I personally find used for them. My wife has recently started utilizing them through the library because she now has a 45 minute commute to downtown from our new house, so I can definitely understand the appeal they have as a passive form of entertainment, especially if the eyes are otherwise focused. I do know from others and my wife that the narrator can make or break an audiobook, which is such a unique problem to this format.