A new reading kiosk was recently opened at the Bexar County Transit Station in Texas. A kiosk that is part of the Ride & Read program and that will manage a catalog of more than 37.000 ebooks that can be used by users who register in the program. This makes transportation be in texas be a hub more where it can be read but in this case I want to focus on the messenger and not the message.
Today many traditional libraries they have several similar digital reading kiosks The one they put in Bexar County. Also, some companies only work with these kiosks like 3M Cloud Library and even some ebook vending machines have the same system.
It seems that everyone is opting for these reading kiosks as a natural or logical alternative to distributing ebooks, but I honestly believe that there are other better methods. On the one hand there the traditional computer, something that Amazon uses because in the official Amazon account the user does not stop having an interface where he decides to which device each thing goes.
Kiosks are spread not only in stations but also in libraries
Another quite interesting option is the use of an app that manages everything, as if it were the kiosk itself but adapted and personalized to our mobile. Finally there are options like the use of labor personnel, but it is not profitable to have several people 24 hours a day for someone to order or request an ebook.
Many are inclined to the option of kiosks but the truth is that it totally distorts the place of the library, because everything seems like a kind of bank where the staff of the bookstore or library hardly have any relationship with the users and it goes without saying that the installation of kiosks in various parts of the city or town helps to promote reading but Why do we need library staff? The truth is that the issue of library staff is increasingly questionable and it is an issue that was postponed, but for how long?