Do they know?

Last week when I went to the local library on one of my usual dvd hunts I heard the librarians taking about e-book readers. Well to be exact the Kindle. Now it seems obvious to most people what the Kindle is given the hype and uproar around e-book readers these days. It seems that you can't go a step without hearing about the Kindle or the Nook, etc. They seem to be fastly becoming commonplace as did the netbooks in 2009. Well not so much. While the one librarian seemed to at least have heard of the Kindle the other had not. That boggle my mind. I would have thought that everyone would have heard about the Kindle or at least seem to know of e-book readers but I was wrong.

Now don't take this the wrong way, I am not making fun of them. I simply didn't think that they wouldn't know. I figured librarians being surrounded by books would know what was going on seeing how this isn't just a new flashy piece of tech but is very revolutionary in the literary world too. E-book readers are presenting new challenges and oppertunities for book lovers, students, and the entire book/magazine industry. I'm not saying that this going to uproot everything over night but you can look down the tracks to where we possibly could be heading. I would think that the would be on top of it, not only because of personal interest but to inform and educate patrons on the exciting new progress that is going on.

The main point of this post isn't to point out any perceived shortcommings but the question if the mainstream world is aware that new options and changes are coming that will change how we read books, magazines, newspapers, pretty much the written word. Do they even care?