By KIM MORGAN
Chronicle correspondent
It's a matter of personal preference as to whether folks would rather hold the real thing in their hands or read by the glow of a technical device, but there's no denying the convenience of electronic books.

Montgomery County Memorial Library is on board, offering patrons a variety of venues for book browsing. All they have to do is visit the Web instead of a branch. Patrons have had access to e-books for more than 10 years, albeit back then it was rather limited to academic and literary materials.

These days, readers have a lot more options, and all they have to do is visit the Web instead of a branch.

Adult Services Coordinator Gregory Tramel said customers downloaded 3,889 e-media items between October 2008 and September 2009.

That's just one count from one e-book source the library system subscribes to, called the Houston Area Digital Media Catalog.

It's a virtual library with clearly marked genres – kids and teens, romance, mystery, history, biography and so forth – and all you need to do to get to it is have a library card.

And a computer, or some form of an electronic reading device.

You can do it from home, Tramel said, or you can take your laptop to any Montgomery County branch and use the free WiFi. You cannot download e-books to a computer library.

Here's how it works.

Go to the Montgomery County library system's home page at www.countylibrary.org and click on the Download Digital Media tab at the top.

Start browsing, select what you want, put it in your digital cart, go to the digital checkout, enter your library card barcode number – which can be found on the back of your card – and you're done.

In addition to e-books, users can also borrow e-audio books. Basically those are what some still refer to as books on tape.

A word of caution, Tramel said, is to make sure the items you want to download are compatible with your computer or device. The e-material is not completely interchangeable.

There are several advantages to e-books, such as the fact you don't have to lug a handful books with you on vacation, and that the e-library is always open.

But that doesn't necessarily mean you can kiss the days of waiting lists goodbye.

Tramel said it depends on the publisher, but some e-books do not allow for multiple checkouts and require you to get on the e-waiting list.

That's one reason why e-books come with due dates.

Readers can choose to checkout an e-book for one, two or three weeks. It will automatically expire after that time, placing it back on the virtual shelf.

But there are not any overdue fines, so technically there is no such thing as turning in an e-book late, Tramel said.

Another way to access e-material through the county library is to hit the Research and E-Book tab on the left-hand side of the homepage. There you'll find a list of more than 100 links to e-books and information databases. Some are free, while others require you to have a library card.

“When I came here 12 years ago, we didn't have e-books,” said Library Director Jerilynn Williams. “Now we do. We're changing because we know the needs of our clients are changing.”

Williams said they have budgeted approximately $8,900 for e-books in 2010. The cost for electronic subscriptions is shared with other libraries across southeast Texas, Williams said, which keeps things affordable.

The same cannot be said for real thing.

Where the library used to have $828,000 a year to purchase print materials, it's now $250,000. That's a 70 percent cut, Williams said.

But plenty of people still want the real thing too.

More than 1.5 million print items were checked out between October 2009 and September 2009.

Nonetheless, both Williams and Tramel believe it's wise to offer a combination of both.

“E-books in no way whatsoever will replace books, nor will libraries close,” Tramel said. “It's just another way to get access to library materials.”