This article will present pros and cons and things to consider when deciding if e-books are right for your library. First, it will be useful to point out some starting places for e-book information. LibraryHQ has an excellent annotated list of e-book related sites and resources that will get you started with basic information. If you want to check out what other libraries are doing, there's a list of libraries with e-books worldwide. The main issues to consider involve technology, and probably most importantly, practicality.
Practicality Let's address practicality first.
Instead of carrying large, heavy textbooks from class to class, carrying around a small compact device containing the equivalent in content is a real improvement. Similarly, users of technical manuals and how-to's could benefit from the capability to incorporate large amounts of material into one small device. Also, the fact that e-books are searchable is especially handy for these types of users. It seems to most of us that curling up with a nice paperback for our leisure reading is preferable to reading text off a screen. For these library patrons e-books are handy because they allow patrons to obtain all the books in a series at one time, load them on a small device, and take them home and read them at their leisure.