E-Book currents

Citation

Falk, H. (2002), "E-Book currents", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 19 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2002.23919hae.001

E-Book currents

Howard Falk

Ebrary collection grows

During the past several months, ebrary added over 2,500 new titles to its collection of ebooks. More than 40 per cent of the titles were published within the past two years. The collection is particularly strong in business and economics, including ebooks from McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, Taylor & Francis, World Bank, Greenwood and Random House. In computers and technology, certification and training, there are titles from Pearson Technology Group, Redmond Press, Coriolis and many others.

Digitized works, images and maps, available to libraries and other users through ebrary, now come from added sources such as The Library of Congress, The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library, Getty Images, Octavo and Maps.com.

Ebrary has announced that it plans to sell individual e-books using technology from Adobe.

Problems with ebrary at Cal State

At California State University (CSU), evaluation of ebrary versions 1.1, 2.0 and 2.1 turned up a number of problems including:

• •

  Installation woes. Librarians find it cumbersome to download, install and maintain ebrary software at their public workstations. Although ebrary is said to be making efforts to improve the installation procedures, it has not yet done so.

• •

  Expensive and unneeded MARC records. The ebrary ebook collection at CSU contains about 5,000 titles, and is adding about 200 titles per week. Electronic MARC records, that cost 50 cents each, are supplied by ebrary. But each of the 21 libraries at CSU is required to separately purchase these MARC records. The cost to CSU for records covering 5,000 titles is over $52,000.

• •

  No control over records and titles. CSU feels it has no assurance that its ebrary collection is permanent. It does not know if it will be informed if titles are withdrawn. No process CSU can use to track the availability of new titles in the collection has been defined. CSU is uncertain about how often they need to load or delete MARC records. Development and control of the ebook collection appears to be out of CSUs control.

• •

  The ebrary free site is an irritation. It is difficult for library personnel at CSU to explain to their administration why they must continue to pay for a service that is being offered to the general public at no charge.

• •

  Ebrary competes with the existing collection. Either CSU or their patrons must pay for printing and copying ebrary pages. But the ebrary material is often duplicated by printed titles already on CSU library shelves. There is competition for patron funds between paying for ebrary copies and paying at library copiers to get the material from CSU printed titles.

One CSU suggestion is that ebrary should offer libraries unlimited printing and copying for a fixed fee. This would assure a stable budget for the service and eliminate the possibility that use of the service might exceed budget limits.

OCLC sprucing up netLibrary

The new OCLC management of netLibrary says they sell ebooks to 7,300 libraries, about 3,000 of which are at colleges and universities. The company started off with backlist titles from publishers and many of those titles were ten years old or older. In the past six months, 4,400 new titles were added to the collection, and 65 percent of those were published between 2000 and 2002. The netLibrary catalog currently contains more than 42,800 ebook titles. Partnerships have been formed with existing book wholesalers so librarians can select and order ebooks using the same systems they use for print orders.

Despite these improvements, librarians have complaints about netLibrary. The major complaint is that netLibrary allows only one user at a time to access an ebook in a library's collection. NetLibrary officials say the policy has been dictated by publishers who supply the titles. However, that may change in the near future, since publishers now seem to view netLibrary as a source of steady revenue and appear to be more ready to cater to the needs of netLibrary users.

Library-friendly ebook software

Adobe Content Server software allows libraries to distribute ebooks and other documents in PDF format. Ebooks can be automatically checked in and out, and may be integrated with a library's existing catalog system. Patrons can use a library Web site to check out and download ebooks. Libraries can set usage rules so the ebooks expire after a certain amount of time or on a specified date. Upon expiration, the ebook can be automatically disabled on the patron's computer. The software also allows copyright holders to set rights and permissions, including whether content can be copied, printed or lent to other readers.

Adobe has worked with ebrary, Baker & Taylor, Follett and netLibrary. Through these companies Content Server 3.0 can be integrated with a library's existing computer systems. For libraries that want to build their own facilities, Adobe Content Server is available from distributors such as OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), or can be licensed directly from the Web site: ebooks.adobe.com There is a one-time fee of $5,000 for one Content Server destination site capable of hosting 250 titles. Expansion packages sell for $1,000 per additional 500 titles. A Content Server linked to one destination site, hosting an unlimited number of titles, costs $10,000. Additional destination sites cost $1,500 each.

Archiving and distribution for libraries

Ebrary recently announced a Custom Technology Platform that allows libraries to distribute high-demand reserves and special collections to patrons, students and other users over the Internet. This ebrary technology uses the PDF format.

Stanford University Libraries are planning to use the Custom Technology Platform to make their electronic documents available on Web sites maintained by ebrary. The rules for access to such sites can be set by the libraries. For example, a library could choose to make some documents accessible only to their own community, while other documents could be available to all Internet users. The library could also choose to offer many users simultaneous access to the documents, and determine other use policies, as needed. The Custom Technology Platform allows interaction at the word level within and between documents. Octavo, (www.octavo.com), an organization that provides comprehensive digitization, archiving and distribution, is authorized to sell the ebrary Custom Technology Platform to libraries that use Octavo services. Prices for ebrary's Custom Technology Platform vary, depending on the number of documents distributed, level of customization and bandwidth requirements.

Few have digital collections

Only about a quarter of all public libraries in the US are involved in converting materials in their collections into digital files. Those libraries that do digitize use this capability to preserve photographs and fragile documents and to make those materials more accessible to patrons. State organizations, such as the Library of Virginia, tend to be more involved with digitization than local libraries. Lack of money, little expressed need, and not enough on-site expertise are among the reasons libraries cited for not engaging in digitization. These observations are among those uncovered by a survey recently conducted by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

In a report based on the survey, the Institute called for the adoption of digital material selection and preservation policies by libraries. Registration of digitized materials in central locations such as the Digital Initiatives Database (at the Association of Research Libraries) was recommended by the report.

Reference ebooks at Florida library

Three years ago the Pasco County Library System (http://power.pasco.lib.fl.us) in Florida established an ebook collection containing more than 3,000 titles. The ebooks are stored at a netLibrary.com Web site and are accessed by patrons via the Internet. Titles in the collection are mostly nonfiction. Included are such items as for Dummies ebooks and computer how-to ebooks. The idea is that patrons will look at selected sections of the ebooks to get specific needed information, rather than reading them cover-to-cover. Patrons who want permission to view the ebooks online spend only about five minutes at a library computer to enroll. NetLibrary is then able to confirm that the patron belongs to Pasco and is authorized to retrieve titles owned by the library system. Registered users can check out and read manuals, print out newspaper or magazine articles or even download material to personal digital assistant (PDA) devices.

The Pasco County Library system also offers its patrons a Chapter-a-Day service that sends a book chapter every day through e-mail. Patrons can choose the book genre they prefer.

Kluwer provides institutional ebooks

The Kluwer Institutional ebook service provides a catalog of ebooks in Adobe Acrobat eBook format. Initially, the catalog includes 450 titles in Biomedicine, Chemistry, Computer Science/Electrical Engineering, Physical Sciences/Materials Science and the Social Sciences. Institutions can purchase multiple-user access to the entire catalog, to a subject-specific collection or to single titles. Bulk discounts are available for an introductory period. The service includes administrative tools designed to give librarians control over their accounts, including management of patron privileges and online orders for new releases. Subscribing institutions' sites can be co-branded with a logo on their main page. The collection will be encoded in MARC format.

Archiving the Internet

The Royal Library of Sweden has been given the right to acquire, preserve and make accessible all material that appears on Swedish Internet sites. After the Swedish Minister of Education and members of his staff gave the Royal Library their full support, a decree was issued that authorized the Royal Library to collect material from Swedish Web sites and allows public access to the collected material within library premises. This means that copyrights on the Internet material will not prevent the library from archiving Internet material or providing public access to it.

Short attention span

netLibrary statistics show that the average time spent reading an ebook is between five and 15 minutes. Other studies find that most online magazine readers prefer short stories, and will often scan a longer piece, picking out only those parts that interest them.

According to S. Joan Popeck, (www.sjoanpopek.com) such facts indicate that authors writing for the Internet should use 100 or less words to tell a complete story. She calls it flash-fiction and here is the example she gives:

The Neighbor's DogBy S. Joan Popek"Arrrooow!"That damned hound is howling again. Every night!"Shut up!" I yell out the window."Arrrooow!"I get my gun. I'll send that beast back to Hell where he belongs.I sneak out to the back fence.The dog snarls, lunges. His demon eyes blaze.My gun flashes. Blood and brains splatter, smelling like copper. I poke his body with the gun barrel – dead – quiet.I smile and go to bed.The smell awakens me. Blood and brains! Eyes glowing, he snarls and lunges. My throat rips as he drags me down into the blackness of Hell with him.

When is a POD not a POD?

Replica Books, the Baker & Taylor Print-on-Demand (POD) subsidiary is being taken to arbitration by SuperiorBooks.com, a small Indian Lake, NY, publisher. The publisher says that Replica violated its contract to provide POD services. SuperiorBooks wants a million dollars in damages. It charges that Replica was slow to deliver POD orders and that POD books contained printing defects. For example, two books ordered in August arrived with defective pages in January.

Baker & Taylor (B&T) is combining its POD and ebook distribution operations in one corporate division. Replica Books will now be part of B&Ts main operation. Libraries can still order a single hardcover copy of a title from B&T, but the minimum POD order from Replica will now be 20 copies.

Tablets for reading and writing

Microsoft Tablet PCs should be available in the fall of 2002. These devices can display ebooks in Microsoft Reader format. They are full-fledged computers that can run the kind of Windows programs used by desktop and portable machines and display e-mail and Internet information. The display of the Tablet PC is 10.4 inches, larger than displays on existing ebook reading devices. Handwriting in seven languages can be recognized, and text can be entered by voice. The display can be easily changed from horizontal to vertical, and the Tablet can stand up like a portable computer, or fold down into a flat surface for reading or taking notes. Tablet PC prices are not yet set, but are expected to be in the range of $2000-2500. PC manufacturers Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Acer have announced plans to produce Tablet devices. HP is expected to begin selling its Evo Tablet device by the end of 2002.

Chinese Q-Reader

The Q-Reader is about the size of an average hardcover book and can download, store and display ebooks. The device holds 25-30 ebooks with 250-300 pages each. It can also connect to the Internet and perform e-mail and PDA functions in English and Chinese. The Q-Reader was developed by Q-Net Technologies together with Liaoning Publishing Group. (Q-Net Technologies, Inc. is a California based, publicly traded, holding company that focuses on introducing consumer technology and value added Internet services into the Chinese market). Twenty distributors in 18 Chinese provinces have ordered 24,700 Q-Readers. Q-Net plans to deliver 30,000 units during the last half of 2002.

Howard Falk(howf@hotmail.com) is an Independent Consultant based in Bloomfield, New Jersey, USA.