Although I am not a big user of them, I am familiar with e-books and e-audio. Ironically, the last time I was "assigned" to take a look at them was when I was in LATI 5 years ago. Wow, what a difference. At that point, use of laptops was not as widespread as it is now. There were also far fewer handheld devices (palms, pdas) than there are now. The majority of the participants in that class were of the opinion that sitting in front of a desktop monitor reading "Sense and Sensibility" would be about as pleasant as a root canal.
Today, though, the use of ebooks and especially eaudio is much more realistic and seems much more pleasant. Laptops and handheld devices offer much more portability than their 75-pound predecessors.
I looked around on Overdrive (which BCPL subscribes to through the Maryland cooperative) and Gutenberg (which I hadn't looked into much before). Both were very easy to use; patrons needed little instruction for selecting and downloading titles. The pros of MP3 player use of eaudio is obvious -- you can take the selection anywhere without having to worry about changing discs or tapes. Now, I think it is much more realistic to have people read ebooks from their laptops or pdas.
Another situation where I can appreciate having so many classic titles always available from Overdrive or always free from Gutenberg is during the summer. It is reading list season and inevitably students wait until the last minute. Now, instead of having them wait 2 days for Huck Finn or Jane Austen, librarians can say "Okay, we have a hard copy coming for you. In the meantime, let me show you this way that you can get started on it either on your mp3 player or on your computer at home." That way, they can get started on the assignment without having to wait an additional 48 hours.
I did browse the downloadable videos available on Overdrive too. There were a few Imax movies that looked interesting, but the rest of the collection was, um, pretty eclectic to say the least. What a, um, wide range.
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