Kindle and iPad instead of a library? I don't think so.

Let me pose two riddles. First, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Second, "In this day and age of digital print media and devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's new iPad, why spend millions on the bricks and mortar inventorying and delivery of reading materials?"

Both are, in their individual way, unanswerable, yet can still be subject to much verbiage. The first was penned by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The second was penned more recently by local realtor, Rick Crouch, on his blog.

Despite many letters from readers trying to guess at the answer, and pages of subsequent literary analysis on its meaning, Carroll later admitted that "...the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all." The riddle is still the focus of a lot of comment, even scholarly papers.

Rick's riddle is more easily answered, but is no less nonsensical. It's akin to asking why we still build family cars when we can have the Space Shuttle. Or why build a multi-use facility with ice rinks, swimming pool and gym when we can buy a Wii.

First of all, you have to define what a library is. It's not merely a building, or a service, a collection, or a system. It's all of those in the same way a car is an engine, a gas tank and a steering wheel. If you think it's just a building full of books, you haven't kept pace with libraries for the past 20-30 years. Along with the world and the communities that house them, libraries have changed and evolved.

A library is a gestalt of many functions, including social centre, local history and genealogy resource, art gallery, meeting place, book repository and archive, Internet caf�, entertainment centre, learning centre, programming centre for children, a safe place for children and parents, an education centre, a community group meeting area, classrooms, homework facilitator, recording centre, computer classroom, a place for lectures, films and workshops, a chess club, board room, and even a community employer. And yes, it's also a service that lends books, CDs and DVDs for free to community members. Free is a key concept here.

But again that's a bit like trying to say what a person is by describing his internal organs. There's a spark that animates a library in the same way there is one that makes you and me human, not merely a mass of bodily parts and fluids.

Rick writes, "Every effort should be made to leverage this facility to its fullest extent the potential for which goes far beyond the loaning out of books." To which I can only scratch my head and wonder where he's been the last two decades. Not in the Collingwood Library, for sure. At every library board meeting, at every library staff meeting, at every meeting of the library's Arts Advisory Council people discuss, debate and promote the library's programs, uses, facilities and services, and look for ways to creatively expand and develop them. The results have been visible every day in the way the library has grown, broadened its reach and matured its role these past 20 years.*

The Collingwood Public Library is the single most popular, most frequented public facility in this community. With the except of a few members of council and apparently one realtor, it is used by just about everybody in town.

But let's go back to his riddle and take a closer look at what the Kindle and iPad are all about, so we have some reference points.

Kindle and iPad are not everyday technology. They are expensive to own and operate, so are generally for the use of the elite or the rich who can afford them. They're elegant and impressive, but still toys.

The small Kindle costs $259 US (plus taxes) from Amazon. The larger version is $489 (plus taxes). And it's the lesser expensive of the two. The Apple iPad starts at $499 US (plus taxes) for 16GB memory. Versions with more memory cost $599 (32GB) and $699 (64GB). Adding 3G access (it comes with only Wifi as standard) costs another $130 per model. The top-end Kindle DX has only 4GB.**

To get a book into one of these devices, you need to download it. Kindle offers free wireless access through Wifi (meaning you need to have access to the Internet and a wireless modem) and a limited (but still free) 3G network. The iPad requires you to subscribe to a monthly service like a cell phone user. Apple's 3G iPad runs on AT&T with two data plans: 250MB for $14.99 and an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month contract-free. I'm not sure if there are any international deals for 3G access right now -an announcement is expected later this year. I do know that US telecom rates are much, much lower than those in Canada and I would expect that rate will be higher here. Not sure how well the Kindle receives data on its free 3G network in Canada.

Plus you have to buy the books. That's right, just like buying real books, except that you can't lend them to friends and family once you're done without giving them your own reader. And once you've read them, you can't trade them in at the local used book store for something else to read. And it's not like going to Indigo or Chapters and browsing - you only get those books the publishers have released in that format. None of the books from my favourite bargain shelves are there.

New York Times bestsellers and new releases generally range from $8 to $15 US each, plus there are advertised more than 115,000 titles $6 and under. While both companies advertise more than 500,000 books are available, most of the top titles are new - popular fiction and bestsellers rather than older stock - including 105 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers. Older reference work, and a lot of nonfiction are not available. No, you won't get the Globe & Mail's bestseller list unless the titles overlap with the NYT's list.

I'm not sure how much if any Canadiana will be available on either system. An article in the Globe & Mail suggests Canadian access is still iffy, and no word on how many Canadian authors will be represented on either platform.

There are also several U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available, too. Some of these are subscription-based, but many you can already get online free. For non-U.S. customers, content availability and pricing will vary according to deals set up within your country (and the impact of international copyright laws). However, while the iPad uses a version of the Safari Web browser, Kindle uses a basic text-only browser. Which, according to the CBC, won't work in Canada. Again, I have not been able to find out if any Canadian magazines and newspapers will be available on either platform.

These companies boast they can offer more than 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books to read, including titles such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island. Well, these too are available - free - online already. Most are presented as unformatted ASCII text rather than the formatted print you would get in any paperback book, although many have been formatted more presentably for ebook readers. Most don't include any illustrations that might have been published with the original, either. And frankly, while some of us may enjoy rereading Dickens, Dostoevsky or Edgar Rice Burroughs on our ebook devices, the market is small compared to that for modern books.

The Kindle is monochrome, the iPad has colour display. The iPad can use all of the iPhone apps, almost 200,000 at this time. The Kindle has few, if any, extra or third-party apps at this time (they're coming, we're told). The iPad weighs in at a beefy 24 ounces, compared with 10.2 for the lithe Kindle. Kindle has a built-In PDF reader. I suspect the iPad also offers one, but haven't been able to confirm. Both devices are awkward to hold- the iPad doubly so because of its weight and slippery surface. The iPad is harder to read in sunlight because of its screen.

The small Kindle holds up to 1,500 books, periodicals, and documents; the larger up to 3,500 books. The actual amount, of course, depends on the file size of the items being stored. Because it has colour and reproduces illustrations, filesizes for some iPad books will be larger. Plus the extra memory in the iPad will also be used for apps, iTunes, videos, etc.

I can't tell if you can download your books to a computer once you've read them, or if you have to delete them to make room for new ones. Nor can I find out if the licence to read any book you purchase is limited to a specific machine (i.e. you can't share it with other Kindle or iPad users or read it on your computer).

But even though you've purchased the books and downloaded them, you don't own the books on your device. In the fine print of your contract, it says Amazon or Apple own the works and can - as Amazon did with Orwell's titles - remotely erase them from your device if they so choose. Even if you do own them - what really do you own? A collection of 1s and 0s in a device memory? Certainly not something you can put on a shelf. I have books in my collection more than a centuy old.*** How long will the books you buy for your iPad be around?

And don't forget to keep them plugged in. While Kindle offers an impressively long battery life - up to one week on a single charge, even with wireless on - the iPad is good for about 10 hours.

Kindle and iPad are wonderful devices. They are delightful, if expensive, accessories to reading. But they aren't books. Books have evolved in the five and a half centuries since Gutenberg developed movable type that automated printing. Many books are the shape and size they are today not because the printers deemed them to be that way, but because they match human ergonomics. For example, the optimum width and height of a line of type for reading and comprehension is found in the average paperback novel.

The point of this lengthy ramble has been to underline that Kindle, iPad and all those impressive ebook readers out there are not portable libraries any more than a new carburetor is a portable car. They are merely devices for personal reading.

Libraries are about community, about social interaction, about people. Kindle and iPad are about solitary, non-interactive uses.

Even if the town gave every single resident a free iPad, and tore down the library, they wouldn't collectively add up to a small portion of the benefits we get from a single day at the library. The kids' chess club that meets in the library wouldn't be able to meet and play without the space the library provides. No one would be able to walk through the art collections and see the works. The seniors who gather daily to read newspapers and chat among themselves would not have a place to go. The people looking for local history or trying to trace their family roots would have no records, and no one to ask for advice or help. Dozens of children wouldn't have a place to safely play and learn. The service clubs that gather there every week would have no place to hold their meetings - the visibility they get from meeting at the library helps them meet new people and attract members who are in the building and curious. The concerts, the special events, the art, the public spaces, the interaction would all be gone.

Sure, some kids could go play hockey or baseball instead of enrolling in programs at the library. But not all kids are sports-oriented, not all parents can afford the membership and the equipment, not all parents can manage the times, dates and locations of practices and games. And while sports help teach teamwork, they also teach competition. The library teaches cooperation.

I could ramble on, as I have in the past, about the benefits, the joys and the strengths of the library. I think I've made my point. It's a common fallacy - but a fallacy nonetheless for its ubiquitousness - to assume that technology can replace everything and anything. And it's elitist to suggest people simply buy expensive technology on their own rather than spend money on public facilities and services like the library. In five or ten years, most of us won't even remember the Kindle or iPad. They will have been replaced by something newer, something faster, better and possibly more expensive. In 100 years, the library will still be with us.

~~~~~
* I can only speak aout the past 20 years because that's as long as I've lived here. I've been on the library board since 1992, the last six years as a council representative. I am very proud to have been instrumental in helping get the library its new building.
** Keep in mind you can get a Netbook or small laptop for $250-$500. And you can already download a free ebook reader for most smartphones, and computers, including Kobo and Adobe Digital Editions. The expected-soon HP Slate will also be enticing. Even Sony's Reader looks promising (the upcoming Kobo e-reader will sell for around $150). So there is no shortage of alternatives to the iPad and Kindle, many of them ringing it at less than either device.
*** More important to me is that I still have books I purchased in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These are books that meant so much to me I have carried them with me through decades of travel, adventures, moving across Canada several times, lasting through relationships, moved to and from numerous apartments and houses, suffering frequent handling, pets, people, bookcases and boxes. And today I can reach over and take them down from the shelf and open them up to let some of their history and all those memories wash over me. One day I might be able to pass along one of these books to my granddaughter and tell her of its marvellous journey to arrive at that moment. Even if I manage to store and maintain the ebooks I have for another decade or two, none of them will ever be more than a computer file.