Kindle: Unintended consequences?

[trof]

Our Friends of the Library group holds a used book sale annually.
It's our biggest fund raiser.
Many dealers attend.
All proceeds go to the library.

This year book donations were far below what we've had in the past, and so were customers.
The consensus is that this is due in large part to online digital 'books'.

We're now scrambling to come up with another fund raiser.

[Angry Dragon]

1. fudge

[defacto7]

2. It's not just Kindle. n/t

[chowder66]

3. That is sad.

I was given a kindle and I find it to be mostly useless. I bought a kindle light as well thinking it could be great for nighttime reading in bed but the batteries were done in three days or about 6 to 8 hours. Not impressed.

Even if I was impressed, it wouldn't stop me from buying books.

I hope your fundraiser is just a one-off. I have a friend here in L.A. who does book fundraisers for libraries and they are still pretty busy and the donations are abundant.

[Tien1985]

4. I think there is

Often another unnoticed reason for this. Many people are moving often these days. Even if it's only down the block, every time you move, all your stuff has to be dragged with you. You cannot afford to collect many bulky, heavy books when you live this way.

Wether it means people read less altogether, or just that they are more likely to adopt digital versions of books more readily, I think it must have an impact.

[X_Digger]

5. Or they recycle books faster..

Instead of letting books pile up and once a year donated to the local library drive, they go every other weekend to half-price books and trade them in.

Personally, we don't buy many paper books after my wife and I both got kindles (shared account so that we can each read what the other has purchased).

I do find that I'm reading more than before, and re-reading our diminishing paper titles less.

[ohheckyeah]

6. I've donated hundreds of books

to my local library. I can understand ebook readers causing customers to the library to be down but not book donations. I've donated more since I got my Kindle as I can always get them on it so why have all those books taking up space?

If I had to guess why book donations are down it would be the economy. People are trying to sell used books instead of giving them away.

[WinkyDink]

7. UNintended? I think not. No library, another communal spot gone.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. In this very tech gadget-loving area, the Friends book sales are still doing well.

They have quarterly sales, in fact. They also have a volunteer-run bookshop in the library.