The market for eBooks has been slow to take off. While it's easy to foresee a future where most of us will view our reading material on some type of handheld, computer or electronic ink-based newspaper, most current users of mobile devices and computers still prefer good old paper as their book reading medium.

Not until electronic devices truly approach the clarity of paper will eBooks really hit its stride by bringing more of the current users of devices that can read eBooks, not to mention the millions who don’t own one of these device, on board.

This doesn't mean that there haven't been advances in the delivery and availability, let alone the popularity, of electronic books. Aside from the number of sites hawking eBooks, libraries, for instance, have started to make them a part of their inventory.

For example, southeastern Ohio Automation Consortium, a consortium of 67 Ohio public libraries, has launched a new online service for its library members and their patrons , enabling the browsing and check out of eBooks from homes, offices and schools. So even in the heart of rural Ohio, where horse-drawn carriages and tractors share the road with cars, library patrons are downloading eBooks directly to their PCs and PDAs using the Internet.

Members of the southeastern Ohio Automation Consortium, a branch of the State Library of Ohio, include Adams County Public Library, Guernsey County Public Library, and Newcomerstown Public Library. The eBook lending solution is run by technology from OverDrive, a company that specializes in eBook and digital media solutions for libraries.

According to southeastern Ohio Automation Consortium, bestsellers and classics, fiction and non-fiction from popular authors and leading publishers such as HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, Zondervan, and John Wiley and Sons are available in Adobe PDF and Mobipocket formats. Patrons download free reader software and use their library cards to check out and download eBooks from the website to their PCs, Macs, Palm OS devices, Pocket PCs and smartphones. eBooks automatically return to the collection at the end of the loan period.

As we reported back in April, the Cleveland Public Library was the first to add OverDrive's Mobipocket eBooks to their download libraries. According to Cleveland Public Librarian Cynthia Orr, "with my AT&T Wireless account and Motorola Smartphone, I can browse the library website, download eBook titles to the phone and begin to read. And with the phone's built-in media card, I can transfer eBooks to my PDA or PC to finish reading a title. As with Adobe eBooks in PDF, after the lending period expires, the title automatically returns itself to the library ready for the next patron"

Back in the fall, the Open eBook Forum, a trade and standards organization for the electronic publishing industries, revealed detailed statistics on the state of eBooks in its first quarterly eBook and eDocument Publishing and Retail Statistics. Compiled from data submitted by 34 publishers and retailers, the Open eBook Forum claimed the analysis marks the first-ever quantitative assessment of the electronic publishing industry.

The report stated that eBook sales revenues were up by 30% and unit sales were up by 40% over the same period in 2002. Even so, the eBook industry has struggled to gain a foothold, as the user experience for reading on eBook devices, which range from PCs to PDAs to eBook specific hardware, and delivery of content haven't reached the point where it is a tempting or completely satisfying alternative to reading standard books for most people.