Recession good for ebooks?

The economy may be in free-fall, but there are those that are predicting the global downturn will have a positive knock-on effect for e-books.

Mike Elgan writes in Computer World on six trends that will finally see ebooks becoming a mainstream method of reading. Number one on his list is the state of the economy and how saving money will increase sales:

"The economy is in the tank, and people are looking to cut costs any way they can. An Amazon Kindle pays for itself after the purchase of 20 or 30 books, then starts paying dividends. You save big on books, magazines and newspapers. These savings will grow even more attractive as the recession deepens."

David Weir on BNET Media also states that the recession will give momentum to the ebook market, as does Nick Farell from the Inquirer. One of the biggest driving forces will be major players in the e-book market driving prices down, and you don't get much cheaper than free. Google books is offering 500,000 of its titles for free download on the Sony Reader. This will surely in turn bring prices down amongst the competition, such as the Amazon Kindle.

Academic libraries are also seeing an increase in ebook usage as shown by early findings from JISCs 'ebook Observatory Project'.

"The project Survey findings, from more than 48,000 respondents, point to a growing acceptance of e-books by the academic community, with both teaching staff and students making greater use of e-books through their university library."
"Student dissatisfaction with library provision of printed textbooks declined sharply over the period of the experiment, suggesting, perhaps that the growing number of e-books in UK universities is beginning to ease some of the acute pressures on the short loan collections."

The challenge for academic libraries is to ensure that e-books and the surrounding technology are as accessible and intuitive to use as their printed counterpart. A report on the 'Library Student Journal' web site concludes:

"As information formats continue to change, the public library needs to rapidly adapt in order to remain relevant. But in its race to keep up with technology, it should not abandon the ideals of equitable access. The integration of e-books into a library’s collection continues to present a unique challenge to today’s public library."