March is “National Read an eBook Month” with March 3rd through the 9th being “National Read an eBook Week”. It has long been debated whether eBooks or physical books are the better option. I know that everyone has their preferences, and I completely understand and support those. I used to be a very physical/print books-only kind of reader, but since working in libraries I have come to appreciate and expand my reading preferences to multiple formats. I still own an incredible number of print books, but I can’t resist some of the pros that eBooks have as a reader.
They make it super easy to transport books on trips. I used to take a small duffle bag full of books when I would go to the beach or some other kind of trip and having an e-reader has made it so much easier to take multiple kinds of books with me to read. And I don’t risk pulling a back or shoulder muscle.
It makes your reading experience more customizable. Many eBooks and e-readers have a function where you can adjust font size. This can be super beneficial for people who have a hard time reading small print. And many now have the flexibility to change font type, margins, font/line spacing, and brightness. Some even have text-to-speech features as well that can be super beneficial!
Annotations and note-taking all in one device. For people who may or may not carry around notebooks and pens, the highlighting and note-taking functions of most e-readers are also really helpful. You can have it all in one little device and you don’t have to worry about any guilt of marking up a book (no shame for people who annotate their personal copies).
A lot of eBooks do tend to be more cost effective and cheaper for the average person.
eBooks are eco-friendly. In the sense that you are saving trees by not having as many cut down for book paper. And it can bring down your carbon footprint by not having as many resources allocated to delivery and production.
Obviously, there are many other positive and negative things that can be argued for and against eBooks, but for the sake of time I will leave you with the five I find to be the most relevant. Below are some of my favorite eBooks that I have read so far as well as some of the more popular titles read in eBook format this past year.
And there are plenty more where these came from! Check out MissouriLibraries2Go to view out our collection of eBooks and eAudiobooks. These titles are also available via the Libby app.
