I've been watching companies' efforts to develop e-book offerings for a long time. As a quadriplegic, I can't hold a book, so reading literature on the computer seems like an obvious solution.
Alas, companies like Microsoft, Adobe and Palm have failed in their e-book endeavors. They've introduced proprietary, encrypted formats that require their respective software to be installed before reading them, in effect destroying a book's inherent characteristic: portability.
Amazon seems to be on the brink of doing e-books right, and I'm keeping my proverbial fingers crossed. By taking advantage of the web's ubiquity, Amazon can restore portability: Pay once, read anywhere.
In November, Amazon announced two new services for accessing books online. The company seems to be targeting programmers and students who would welcome freedom from toting enormous texts. But Amazon has another, perhaps unforeseen, set of customers: the disabled.
Amazon Pages will allow readers to buy online access to individual pages and chapters from books instead of the entire thing, presumably for a few cents a page. Amazon Upgrade will let readers purchase, for a similar premium, perpetual access to an online digital copy of the text.
If the services turn out to be as good as they sound, I plan on taking full advantage of them. I miss the comforting sensation of curling up with a good book at night, promising myself that I would only read one more chapter before becoming so engrossed in the story that I devour it whole and am barely aware of the fact that, as my eyelids are closing, the sun is rising on the next day.
It truly is the little things in life that make it worth living.
The joy of holding a book again won't be happening in the next year, but Amazon's proposed services, assuming they are well implemented, will reopen the boundless horizons of literature to me and other similarly disabled readers.
If your library is in Oklahoma and you have electronic books available for your patrons would you drop me a line? I would like to compile a list for our readers. :)
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