Rowan Public Library
At Rowan Public Library, patrons equipped with just a library card slide lots of things over the checkout counter, including brand-new best-sellers, movies and books on CD.
Now, something else has been added to that list: an Amazon Kindle, the electronic reading device that can hold more than 1,500 books in its memory.
“Part of our mission is to bring new materials that stretch the mind to the public,” library Public Services Manager Suzanne White said, “and the Kindle is one of those technologies that some people have heard about but haven’t tried. The public library is the perfect opportunity to try it out.”
The Kindle was created by Amazon in 2007 as a way for people to read e-books, and weighs just over 10 ounces and is as thin as a magazine. It takes about a minute for a book to be wirelessly delivered to the device, and the company’s advertising claims that it “reads like real paper.”
White and other librarians second that claim.
“It reads surprisingly like a book,” White said, “but it’s lighter than most and holds many books in one place.”
The Rowan Public Library’s twelve Kindles have over 80 books loaded now, including latest fiction and non-fiction best sellers, including Stieg Larsson’s latest thriller, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” and Tony Blair’s memoir, “A Journey.”
The devices are more costly than a hardcover book or a DVD, so the library is requiring that patrons have an updated library card in good standing and show a valid driver’s license or state ID when they’re checking one out.
For more information, or to request a Kindle, call any library location: The headquarters library in Salisbury at 704-216-8243, South Rowan Regional Library in China Grove at 704-216-7733, and the East Branch in Rockwell at 704-216-7838.