Week 11 prompt

Ebooks and audiobooks are a part of our landscape. What does the change in medium mean for appeal factors? If you can't hold a book and feel the physical weight of it in your hands, how does that affect your knowledge of the genre? How about readers being able to change the font, line spacing, and color of text - how does that affect pacing and tone? How about audiobooks? Track length, narrator choice, is there music?  For this week, I want you to think about how ebooks and audiobooks affect appeal factors - also think about appeals that are unique to both mediums. Please feel free to use your own experience and that of your (anonymous of course) patrons. I look forward to reading these!

The story-focused appeal factors that Saricks uses remains the same, but these new formats introduce new, unique appeal factors.

Audiobooks are perhaps more straight forward in terms of their appeal factors, but I also admit that I don't have a lot of experience with them.  I use my phone to listen to music and podcasts, and my commute to work is two minutes if I hit a traffic light.  (Yay for only living a couple blocks away!)  I suppose a Playaway would solve the tech issue, but I would still find the "time required" too daunting.  I'm not one for sitting still, and I'm worried I will miss details if I split my attention to do another task while listening.  Yet I know for many others, listening to audiobooks is relaxing.  My mother listens to one for about an hour every night while she puts together a jigsaw puzzle.  I also know they're popular with people who commute to the city for work, and they're also lifesavers to the avid readers whose eyes are going bad.  (One of our patrons was declared legally blind a couple years ago, and every week her daughter comes in to pick up anywhere from four to eight audiobooks for her!)

Although I did listen to the BBC radio adaption of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, and I was surprised how fun it was.  They had sound effects, music, and celebrity to voice the different characters.  I had it in my head that audiobooks were bland.  Writing this, I'm starting to think I'm just making a bunch of unfair assumptions about audiobooks....  :)

The audiobook's hours daunt me because then I feel like I'm locked into it until the chapter or the disc ends.  A book that's thick with hundreds of pages doesn't daunt me, because I know I can read a few at a time.  Yet I know it's usually the opposite for my patrons.  There's one who's reading through George R.R. Martin's series who would normally never pick up a book that's 1100 pages, but he'll laugh about how Storm of Swords is 39 discs!  I imagine it'd be the same for ebooks...the physical size isn't there to scare patrons away from trying something new.

Ebooks are also cheap.  One of our readings touched on this and the sampling feature, and how these factors influence their reading habits into becoming more diverse.  I've done the same..."eh, it's $1.99, I wouldn't be out much to try it."  I'll use my e-reader for books I only have a slight interest in reading, or to bypass the long hold list for a physical copy at my library.  As for patrons, most questions about our Overdrive app begin "So I'm going on vacation..."  I've also noticed a growing number of busy mothers using ebooks because it cuts out adding a trip to the library from their schedule, or just reduces the number of physical lending material they need to keep track off.

I do like many of the unique appeal factors of ebooks, such as being able to look up a word's definition by holding it, or being able to search for a particular word within the text.  (Helpful in fantasy novels when I don't remember what a made-up word means or who this character with a weird name is.)  The ability to change font size is also a benefit to patrons with weaker eyes.  But I'm sure these capabilities may be daunting to others, who don't consider themselves tech-literate.

Each reader can argue pros and cons of a format.  But these unique appeal factors give readers so many more options than just the traditional book.  Between books, audiobooks, and ebooks, readers can pick the storytelling that works best for them.  As we RA librarians get to know our patrons, we may be able to help them find a way to read (or listen!) that will enhance their enjoyment and set them up to become even more avid readers.