“Responding to the growing popularity of electronic readers like the Kindle and Nook, the Broward County Library system has launched a pilot project to loan out the devices,” according to this report in the Miami Herald.

Six branch libraries within the Broward County system have begun loaning out the hardware for those who prefer to e-read. Each branch has six e-readers, and patrons can choose between a Nook, Kindle or Sony device.

Library patrons are allowed two weeks with the device, can download one book for free from the library system, and are given a crash course on the basics of operating the things before being set loose.

‘”Libraries are responding to the changing needs of their customers,” Faye Roberts, executive director of the Florida Library Association tells the Herald. ‘”As usage changes, technologies come and go rather quickly, but we’ve been able to adapt.”’

Librarians don’t believe this is the end of the paper book as we know it, nor do they believe it means libraries will just be stacks of gadgets. As Al Carlson, a project manager with the Tampa Bay Library Consortium who gives lectures on the future of e-books in libraries, tells the Herald, “Nobody really knows what the library of the future will look like. Libraries check out DVDs, but I don’t know of any libraries checking out whole DVD players. It won’t be as much about loaning out the hardware, as it will be of providing a source of free downloadable books.”

Both Miami Dade and Broward counties provide access to e-books on their websites, and see the e-book phenomenon as a possible way to stretch already over-stretched budgets, as libraries were forced to cut staff and hours. “E-books don’t save you that much money that you can rehire someone, but you also don’t need that much in the way of staffing or a bricks and mortar building to offer books online 24/7,” Carlson says.

And, for those who prefer print books,  Frank Marin, head of audio visual and popular reading services for the North Regional/Broward College Library branch in Coconut Creek, said, “Movie theaters didn’t go away when the VCR came about. Radio stations didn’t go away when the 8-track or tapes came around. Print books are here to stay.”