Getting the right experience

One of the most enjoyable aspects of ereaders, is reflowing text. That's when the story or book you are reading automatically fills each screen of your ereader at the size you want, so the text is comfortable to read -- and you only have to turn pages to read the text. From my experience, at that point, the reading brain makes no distinction between perusing the pages of a book and perusing the pages of an ebook. (And the reading brain is very happy.) I was reminded of this today when I went to my local library online and downloaded a book (for a two-week borrowing) to discover that the book was a pdf ebook (from Overdrive) -- in my mind not a real ebook. In other words the pages did not fill my screen. In fact I had to enlarge each page to read the words, and then scroll across each line to read the words. The experience was excruciating. (And I remembered a few years ago, when ebooks were caught in that nightmare state.) In order for a reader to get the right experience an ebook must have reflowable text. In my opinion, any library that is offering pdf ebooks for readers to check out is unconsciously discouraging readers from pursuing this entertainment.