Grant Information

A Wisconsin Advanced Telecommunications Foundation (WATF) Grant of $189,000 was awarded to seven Public Library Systems to provide access to electronically published books (ebooks) for Wisconsin citizens through their public libraries. This grant is the basis for the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium. Since the start of the grant additional Public Library Systems have joined the Consortium. See a complete listing of participating Systems at the bottom of this page. Any Wisconsin public library or group of libraries can join the Consortium for the purposes of obtaining ebooks for their patrons. Currently the project covers over three quarters of the public libraries in the state serving 3.5 million people.

Rocket eBook/REB 1100 Reading Devices

The RCA REB 1100

Is a dedicated ebook reading device which has recently replaced the Rocket eBook Reader. There were two hardware reading devices in the marketplace, the Rocket eBook and the SoftBook Reader. They have both been acquired by Gemstar. The Rocket eBook device, now updated by the RCA REB 1100 is more common. They are the size of a paper back book and the Pro version can store between 20 and 30 novels. Free ebooks formatted for the Rocket eBook and lots of new for sale titles are available from Barnes and Nobles or Powells Books and other web vendors. The Rocket eBook is linked to a particular PC you designate for obtaining, loading and organizing your ebooks on your reader. The new Gemstar readers are more proprietary. They have built in communication devices that link directly with the Gemstar web site. The REB 1100 has fewer titles for sale than the older Rocket eBook. The public domain titles are now for sale at an average price of $5. You can create your own public domain titles as outlined further below. In theory all the old Rocket eBook titles should work on the new RCA REB 1100, but there can be definite "translation" problems. These changes are making the library community nervous about adopting reading devices.

This is what it looks like

For further explanations of what it does, how it does it, and what you have to do, check out the different sections below.

1) Getting Started
2) Using Your Device
3) eBook Librarian Software
4) Reading Device Web Sites
5) Getting Books and Other Useful Resources

Forward to Getting Started | Back to Getting Books | Devices Home

Consortium Participants Eastern Shores Library System | Indianhead Federated Library System | Kenosha County Library System | Lakeshores Library System | Mid-Wisconsin Federated Library System | Milwaukee Public Library | Nicolet Federated Library System | Northern Waters Library Service | Outagamie Waupaca Library System | South Central Library System | Waukesha County Federated Library System | Winding Rivers Library System | Winnefox Library System | Wisconsin Valley Library Service Web pages produced by Mark Beatty, WiLS