Cat's out of the Bag - in a Big Way!

So, I've been dying to blog about this topic for, oh, 9 months now. (is it just me or do all good things come to fruition after the standard pregnancy period?!)

The Penn State University Libraries have sent out press releases this week announcing our year-long pilot project to experiment with the Sony Reader in a variety of different academic settings. I am in the very exciting position of being a co-project leader for this endeavor - no small task!

This whole project has evolved into something that is truly exciting, beyond my wildest imaginations of what it could be. We have an awesome project team that works together to troubleshoot and has come up with amazing ways of handling these private market-geared devices in a public services setting.

This fall, Readers are deployed to 2 Honors English classes, 1 Library First Year Seminar, and to the library's leisure reading lending collection. I am one of the instructors for the First Year Seminar, and have to say it was incredible to watch the students' eyes light up as they learned of their potential to help change the way higher ed. thinks about books and their relationship to research and the classroom.

I am so glad to be able to start blogging about this project. I promise to be as vigilant as possible in providing updates and announcements. There is already a buzz about this project, and it's only been a few days.

First, Sony Insider picked up on the project. Since then, so has LISNews and publisher Joe Wikert. Today, there is commentary in the MobileReads Forums, Teleread, and a guy named Jeff Rutherford, who is writing in response to Wikert's post.

I'm sure I've missed others, and am excited to see how the dialogue unfolds. I, for one, am going to try to remain unbiased in my posting - strictly informational whenever possible - until we have some findings to share.  Stay tuned....