How the iPod Touch is changing the way I read (Part 1)
If you didn’t know, I’m about to graduate from library school in May. My education in library science has gotten me thinking about reading and technology. In the past few years I have undergone a major shift in how I read. First, there was audio books which I really started getting into a couple years ago after an Audible.com advertisement on Leo Laporte’s TWiT (This Week in Tech) network. My father had always been a big Books on Tape fan and would have them playing in the car on trips, but it wasn’t until I started loading Audible books on my iPod that reading this way really took off for me. Another reason I joined Audible is I was taking a children’s literature course for library school. We were assigned many young adult novels to read for class. I was reading 3 or 4 (actual) books simultaneously and I decided to join Audible to help me get through a few of them as well. I’ve been listening and enjoying audio books ever since.
About 6 months after I joined Audible, I got my iPod Touch. Then a month later the App Store opened allowing you to put apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch. This is when I first got Stanza. Stanza is an e-book reader which originally let you download public domain books (classics published before 1920 and free of copyright restriction) to read on your device. Now you can buy books or download free public domain books, but another app has taken over for me in the purchasing of e-books (more on that later). As a substitute teacher, Stanza was awesome to get reading done of classic literature during the time the kids were at their Specials classes. I read such novels as The Great Gatsby, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, Emma, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
A year later Amazon came out with their Amazon Kindle for iPhone app. You could buy new books and bestsellers on Amazon and they would come straight to your device wirelessly. The Kindle app soon replaced Stanza for me because it was so easy to go to Amazon on the computer, buy a new book for $10 or less in most cases, and automatically have it sent to my iPod Touch. With the Kindle app I read New Moon from the Twilight Saga, Q & A which Slumdog Millionaire was based, Red Mist, 7th Son: Descent, The Road, Coraline, The Handmaid’s Tale, Dead Until Dark, and Marley & Me. I love having these books to read on a device that easily fits in my pocket and I can take out anywhere I want to.
To be continued. . . .