Airmen at Little Rock Air Force Base are some of the first to try out a new e-book reader the U.S. Air Force recently had custom-made at a price of about half a million dollars.
The base library received 10 of the new devices -- named AERO -- this month, and airmen have just begun checking them out, said Bethry Becker, the library's manager. The base in Jacksonville is one of 19 installations that are testing the e-reader before it's rolled out Air Force-wide.
"Right now it's a test program," Becker said. "We're looking for feedback on usage to see if they like the format and felt it was a convenient alternative. I would think the next step will be expanding the program and going to all base libraries."
About half the e-readers were checked out a few days after they became available, said base spokesman Arlo Taylor. The 10 AEROs will serve the base, which has a population of approximately 30,000, during the testing phase.
"There are just a few right now. It's not a huge rollout yet," Taylor said. "But they're moving."
The Air Force announced in August its intent to purchase an e-reader that was not Web-based and could be pre-loaded with 200 titles handpicked by Air Force leadership.
Findaway World, an Ohio-based tech company, was awarded a $499,000 contract in September to design and manufacture the device.
The Air Force sought e-readers of its own after noticing the positive reaction to a similar device made for the U.S. Navy, said Marjorie Buchanan, branch chief of the Air Force Personnel Center libraries, in a news release.
The Navy asked for a lightweight, secure device with the limitations of a submarine in mind, Navy officials have said. The cramped space doesn't allow for stacks of books, and the devices had to be secure enough to safeguard against giving away positions with electronic signals.
The Navy e-Reader device, called "NeRD" for short, was also created by Findaway World.
Like the Navy's version, the Air Force's AERO does not include a camera, USB ports, or a Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connection. Users are not allowed into the device's operating system, meaning airmen cannot change, add or erase content.
Approximately 385 of the Navy's e-readers, each containing 300 titles, were first distributed in May to each of the Navy's submarines.
Each NeRD is reported to have cost $3,000, with most of the expense going toward rights to the pre-loaded books.
The Navy announced Dec. 8 that it would expand the program after receiving positive feedback during the testing stage. According to a news release, the distribution plan calls for 1,170 e-readers to be sent to onshore libraries, hospital ships and other combat ships, including minesweepers, destroyers, frigates and cruisers.
The Navy General Library Program next plans to distribute the e-readers to other surface ships, including aircraft carriers.
"When we learned what a positive impact the Navy had with their eReader, we decided that it would be a great quality-of life initiative to create one for Air Force personnel," Buchanan said.
Along with Little Rock Air Force Base, 12 of the 68 Air Force bases in the U.S. will test the AERO. Becker said only active-duty airmen could check out the library's e-readers during the testing phase.
The Air Force Personnel Center, which runs the libraries, is looking for feedback on the device and its content.
The 200 pre-loaded titles include New York Times best-sellers and classics, as well as some titles from the Air War College reading list, such as The Art of War and History of the Peloponnesian War, Becker said.
She said there's a "large variety" of books available, including Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Bossypants by Tina Fey and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
"There's sci-fi, some business books, fiction, historical fiction, mystery, personal development and even some poetry," Becker said. "There's something for everybody."
The participating bases are in nine states -- Arkansas, California, Texas, North Dakota, Missouri, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho and Alaska.
The devices will also go to airmen at seven overseas air bases in Japan, South Korea, Italy and Turkey.
Metro on 12/15/2014