I have been hesitant about eBooks because of

1. DRM issues
2. How would I choose among the various readers out there?

However, the sheer volume of our library means the issue is always coming up. Also, I find that I am collecting a large number of pdf files, for which the DRM problem does not come up. An eBook reader would be nice just for them.

That leaves the issue of choosing a reader. The iPad is out: It costs too much. So the announcement of Amazon’s latest Kindle led me to do a comparison about what eBooks they offer as opposed to what can be bought from Barnes and Noble for their Nook. Forget about New York Times best sellers; I have some rather odd interests and I wanted to find out which bookseller had the most eBooks that would interest me. So on each of their web sites I entered various keywords and phrases and noted the number of hits:

Actually, the results are even more one-sided than the statistics show. B&N included a lot of free books from Google. Amazon did not, but since they are pdf’s the Kindle can certainly handle them.