Can print, technology learn to coexist?

Nook. Kindle. Daily Edition.

Their names conjure cozy, images of curling up with a book or newspaper in a wing-back chair next to a crackling fire. Yet the reality is e-readers offer not a dog-eared page in sight.

Their names could serve as an example of how print and technology coexist, yet their struggle to maintain harmony remains to be seen.

Barnes and Noble's Nook, Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Daily Edition join literary social networking sites and online scans that compete with traditional print books. Book lovers, publishers and librarians discuss how the presence of such phenomena threaten and promote books.

Amazon debuted the first e-reader by a well-known brand in 2007. Its Kindle, like other e-readers, boasts a slim, light-weight design and the capacity to hold more than a thousand books.

The demand for e-readers soars: Sony and Barnes and Noble are out of stock of theirs for the holiday season, according to Publishers Weekly. An NPR story from October cited a prediction of 3 million in e-reader sales for 2009.

Florence-Lauderdale Public Library has yet to stock electronic books, but it keeps one foot in print and one in technology. Mystery and evening book clubs meet there once a month, and circulation is up. Archives are digital.

"Everything we do pretty much has a technology element to it," said library director Nancy Sanford. "We use the Internet for finding new books and new authors and to read reviews."

Employees also seek other library Web sites for tips on promoting and attracting readers. So far, that's not a problem at the library. Circulation increased from 2008-09 by 21,510 to 283,999 for the 2009 fiscal year.

"Part of it is because of the economy," Sanford said. "Our services are free."

She's not worried about competition from e-readers or Web sites such as Google, which scan pages. She said the library holds possibilities not available online such as programs for infants.

"You can't come face to face with Google and watch a pre-schooler learn how to read," Sanford said. "We're helping children learn how to read before they ever get to school."

Still, she welcomes the possibility of incorporating electronic alternatives as the demand grows and time changes.

"We're still always going to be about books and learning, but whether it's always going to be about just printed books, I don't think so," she said.

Though he reads many manuscripts on a gadget similar to an e-book, Randall

Williams doubts tangible bound books will lose their hold on readers any time soon.

"The book is such a perfect format for transmitting information," said the editor in chief of New South Books in Montgomery. "It's a cultural artifact that we've worked with for centuries and centuries ... batteries never fail, and the server never shuts down. You can read it in light and in any location. It just works perfectly well, and people love that."

So do college students.

Jennifer Greer, chair of the journalism department at the University of Alabama, often gives her students reading

assignments.

"When I send anything of length to be read, they print it out," she said. "...It's just easier to be read in that environment."

Williams has not been significantly affected by electronic alternatives to books, but he's observed bigger

publishers suffer because of online sales.

"The online selling and trading of books is, I think, probably complicating book marketing for a lot of publishers. You can go to amazon.com, look for a book there and see that the book is $19.95 new, but there are x number of new and used copies for a penny up, " he said.

He sees no harm in scanned chapters of published books on Google.

"As far as the ability to go online and see parts of these books through Google, I think most publishers feel that helps sales rather than hinder them," Williams said.

So, perhaps, can literary social networking Web sites. Readers use them to curb their print appetites. Web sites such paperbackswap.com allow trading books through snail mail, while readers gather on goodreads.com, shelfari.com and librarything.com to discuss their current, favorite and future reads. Book clubs abound on the sites as well.

Andrea, a member of the Alabama Readers group on goodreads.com resides in Mobile and reads paperbacks most of the time, but also loads books onto her iPhone.

"It's very convenient to have something on which to read that you already keep with you at all times," she said in a post. "I don't need an e-reader to warrant the expense yet, but I can see how useful they are for city commuters, and I'll be excited to buy one when they become more affordable."

She turns to the Internet to learn about new books and authors on sites such as Librarything, Facebook and Twitter. She keeps up with her favorite authors through their blogs.

Blogs in fact, may give potential authors a leg up in getting their work published, according to Greer.

"It's harder to get a book published without a following online," she said. "They need to have their book published to get a following, and they need to have a following to get published."

She cites Julie Powell, author of "Julie and Julia," as an example of what the Web can do for an aspiring writer. After Powell's blog picked up hundreds of followers, Little, Brown and Company published a book based on it.

The advantage to publishing a book with a following means an estimated guarantee of sales.

And advantage is perhaps what it boils down to in the battle of printed words ad their electronic counterparts.

Williams is not opposed to using an e-reader in place of lugging around manuscripts.

"If I had a Kindle would I tote that around instead of my heavy laptop? Well, maybe," he said.

Jennifer Crossley can be reached at 740-5743 or jennifer.crossley@timesdaily.com.