eBook Format Wars

Lately there has been a number of inquiries at the library about offering eBooks. eBooks are nothing new really, there was a buzz about them in the early 2000s, but ever since the bookseller giant, Amazon, got into the game with the Kindle, the buzz has been hotter than ever. The main problem with any new technology is there is no industry accepted standard yet. You can't buy a Kindle-version eBook and then easily transfer it to a Sony eReader or Barnes and Noble's own reader, the Nook. That makes its really hard for any library to build up a collection when there is no assurance that these readers and their proprietary formats will still be around in the next few years. No one wants to be on the bleeding edge of technology left with a huge collection of obsolete HD DVDs when Blu-ray emerged king of the DVD formats. Or looking back even further, who was foolish enough to stockpile Beta tapes when VHS won that war? At some point you do have to jump in the game, but I hope that by the time my library does, there is an official industry standard for ebooks.