Embracing E-Reader Technology with Nook Club

In the article, Embracing e-reader technology with Nook club, author Hayley Ringle discusses the advantages of school libraries having nooks for students to use. She mentions that while the nooks themselves come at a fairly expensive price of about $300 per nook, the books that can be purchased and downloaded on them are significantly cheaper then buying the traditional book. She even gives a comparison of prices of Suzanne Collins’, “The Hunger Games” stating that the traditional book in hardback form casts 17.99 while the e-book format costs only $5. Ringle includes a couple of comments from students who have used the nooks who enjoyed various things about the electronic readers from being able to read in the dark with the illuminated screen, to the fact that the nook was much lighter than a traditional book. The advantage for the school with the nooks is that, since all six of the current nooks are on one account, the school only has to purchase the book once for all six nooks to have accesses to it.

As a future educator I have very mixed feelings about nooks and other types of electronic books. I can definitely see the advantages of them, including the cost efficiency of buying books. Also, just the fact that they are technology has a great advantage in getting kids interested in reading. For these reasons I think the nooks could be a great addition to schools, even though there is large initial cost to purchase the nooks. However, I don’t feel like the nooks should replace all traditional books. I think that students need to have the option to use a traditional book. The reason for this is because I know from experience that while some students will embrace the idea of electronic books, others will prefer the feel of holding a real book in their hands while reading. This is actually something that the school librarian said in the article, that the goal was to blend the use of traditional books and e-books, not replace the traditional with the e-books. If this blending of the two types of books is truly the ultimate goal, then I agree with the idea of integrating e-books into the school system.