Book traders/E-readers make headway with some Iowa book lovers

Never mind their newfangled electronic counterparts, Gretchen Sutherland of Mount Vernon doesn't see old-fashioned books going away anytime soon.

Sutherland, 69, said she and other members of Ingleside Book Club in Mount Vernon “seem to prefer a book on the written page” in their day-to-day reading.

On the other hand, Sutherland's neighbor and fellow book lover Jane Pospisil is an e-reader user who likes how easily e-books are distributed and the cost-effectiveness of downloading free library books.

“There's no reason not to have every book that you want,” Pospisil, 60, said at a recent book talk in Mount Vernon.

“On vacation, I used to take 12 books, now it takes literally minutes to download that many,” said Pospisil.

The debate in books clubs over the old versus the new is growing along with the use of e-readers, such as Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Sony Reader. International Development Corp., a marketing research firm, recently reported that e-reader shipments increased in 2010 by more than 325 percent to 12.8 million units, with Amazon claiming 48 percent of the market.

Lisbon Public Library Director Amy White, 53, of Mount Vernon, was introduced by her husband to the Kindle when she was unable to get a copy of the selected book for one of the clubs to which she belongs.

“It has actually made me more excited about reading in a daily way,” said White, who runs the Reading Friends of Lisbon Library Book Club, and is also a member of the Ingleside Book Club.

She also acknowledged e-readers may not be for everyone.

“Most people who aren't into the Kindle are people who are afraid of losing the pleasure of reading, of turning the page,” she said.

Sutherland, who does not own an e-reader, agrees, although she said that a few Ingleside members find them handy when they travel.

“These women love the feel of books, of seeing the written word on the page,” she said. “We are still a club where the reviewer holds up a book, turns to a page, and tells the members what she wants them to know about the book.”

Book buyer perspective

Paul Ingram, a trade book buyer at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, considers e-readers a threat to independent bookstores and the physical book itself.

“You can buy books that load onto Google readers and any other kind of reader except Amazon's Kindle,” Ingram said.

While Google has partnered with Prairie Lights to offer its customers e-books that can be bought through the store's website, Amazon has not.

“Their intent is to eliminate the middleman - that's us - from the book selling process,” said Ingram.

Ingram, 65, leads Paul's Book Club at Prairie Lights.

“I don't say to someone in the club, you can't download these books ... but if they came into the meeting holding a Kindle, then I think we'd stop talking about the book and start talking about that instead. I'd ask why they're sending money out of state.”

Aesthetics involved

Cathy Boggs, 47, of rural Lisbon, a librarian at the Cole Library at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, said aesthetics play a key role in what type of book format to use.

Boggs, who also runs Cornell's Cole Library Adult Book Discussion Club, uses a Sony Reader and enjoys the adjustable font size feature. “I often read at night, when my eyes are tired. I want to read in a larger print, and this is light weight.”

But there is also “the whole, tactile experience of a book, like the crunch sound a library book jacket makes when you open a book,” she said.

White, the Lisbon library director, said in the long run, it's the reading experience that matters.

“Books are things, and their value is in the words inside,” she said.

By C.H. Tabak, Correspondent