Stop Press: eBookMan released

Readers will recall Sue Hutley, Electronic Services Librarian at Toowoomba City Library, winning ten Rocket eBook readers in the recent eBooknet competition, with an entry which  promised to share her prize among ten regional  libraries in S.E.Queensland.  The pledge was redeemed on 16 November 2000, when Brisbane, Caboolture, Caloundra, Gold Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Maroochy, Pine Rivers & Redlands public library services were presented with the goodies at fair Toowoomba's city council chambers. Check out the ceremony at: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/publib/qcollserv/launch.htm or browse the truly fab.State Library of Queensland e-book links site at http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/publib/infotech/ebook.htm . (Back)

On 23 October last in Canberra an Australian Focus Group on eBooks met for inaugural discussions. Queensland again led the e-way, with delegates from two university and two municipal libraries, while NSW was represented by two regional university libraries and Victoria and ACT by one uni. library each. Major issues touched upon included access, acceptance by users, catalogue integration, delivery and pricing models, content, copying, copyright, standardisation and supplier assistance.   Group host Blackwell's Book Services have also set up a regional listserv for Australia & New Zealand, to enable an online discussion forum for focus group participants.

In contrast to last issue's bounty there were few new e-reader releases over the quarter, but at least two devices have significance for Australia this year.

Feb.14. The Franklin eBookMan was finally released in the U.S. today after repeated earlier delays. Local readers may recall Dick Smith Electronics chain store causing a flurry two months ago by announcing three models for sale in flyers overprinted  with an "unavailable" message due to last minute no-shows. Franklin's Oz distributors in  Smithfield, Sydney, declined to be drawn on local availability, but an industry source told me the eBookMan will be in Dickie's Sydney warehouse on 1st March, and available for purchase a few days later.

The three models are the EBM-900, priced at $US130 with 8 Mb RAM; the EBM-901, $US180, also 8 Mb but  backlit too; and the EBM- 911, $US230, with 16 Mb. That's still not a huge amount of memory, but there's an expansion slot  for a tiny MultiMediaCard (being the world's smallest removable memory, a postage stamp-sized, solid state card which can store 64 Mb of text, audio or video files). All have LCD touch screens, will play  MP3 and book audio files, & include personal organiser tools.  What's more they're identically sized & feature the same screen resolution (240 x 200 pixels).

The catch is, only around one hundred fully formatted titles (mostly reference) will be immediately available in Franklin's own e-reader software, although you'll have access to out of copyright or other gratis works as text & html files. That handicap will change when a special Franklin version of Microsoft  Reader  becomes available soon for installation (next month is the whisper).  By the weigh - this device clocks in at only 7 ounces, and runs on two AAA batteries.  And by the other way, Dickie's Australian prices are $298, $398 and $497 for the three models available.  Considering the parlous state of  the Oz dollar, if prices drop over the year the EbookMan must be cause for excitement as good value here.

Comment: Will the eBookMan become what the Rocket eBook was shaping up to be before Gemstar changed Nuvomedia's direction -i.e. the first cheap & popular dedicated e-reader?

GoReader (see Oct. issue) have bagged textbook publisher Addison Wesley and 134 plum titles for their forthcoming student oriented e-reader, which may be generally released in June.  Meanwhile a pilot group of students at the Uni. of Chicago & Wake Forest Uni. law schools are to be issued with  goReaders primed with law e-texts from the West Group around March. In discussion GoReader's Andrew Watts acknowledged to this newsletter that GoReader are walking a  fine line between price on the one hand and weight and battery life on the other. He intimated that they may begin pilot releases of the GoReader in Australia around Sept-Oct. this year.

The AlphaBook from Tetrawave is potential competition for the GoReader (see Oct. issue) with special features designed to appeal to the tertiary education market. The 11 in by 8.5 in colour device is said to have a battery life exceeding 20 hours before recharge, weighs 2.6lb and includes a remarkable split screen facility.  Intended to store around 68,000 text pages or 30 illustrated textbooks, storage can be expanded to infinity with the use of removable memory cartridges.  An intended retail price of $US450 makes it significantly cheaper  than the REB-1200 and a possible hit among U.S. college students. Release date unannounced as yet.  Their website wins no awards though at : http://www.tetrawave.com.

In devices which are NOT dedicated e-readers but may be used as such, Bill Gates's Tablet PC prototype gained headlines in November last ( see Evil Empire Update below for a preview).  However the Tablet PC is a long way from production and won't be cheap.  Similarly Sharp's Copernicus device, which debuted 17 January, is a tablet type (no keyboard) colour, touch-screen computer with a 6-gig. hard drive and other behemoth features. At over two thousand US dollars this is another rich people's toy.  A third tablet-style computer is Korea's LG Digital iPad, which runs on Linux  & is expected to be available later this year, price unknown but certainly not inexpensive.

Hope they really mean it: Thomson/RCA's  Steve Mannheimer says he's interested in feedback from librarians about what they want in an e-book reader - address  your thoughts to mannheimers@tce.com please.  I'd suggest  lower-priced REB models and reincluding software to load unencrypted local documents for a kick-off, Steve! (Back)

It's still early days yet in the battle of the e-formats.   So they've gone all multilateral at Barnes & Noble's eBookStore at http://www.bncom, which  now offers customers a choice of  books for  GEMSTAR's e -readers, Microsoft Reader titles and Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader with it's PDF based book files. You can buy the readers or download  the free rival software right there on site.  Meanwhile Powells.com, (http://www.powells .com), America's largest "independent " bookstore, announced Feb 15 that they too will offer e-titles in the three biggest formats. But in the end,  nothing will replace all  e-titles being available in, or easily convertible to, every format that a reader or institution might  sensibly wish to use.  That's the Holy Grail of format folks, all else is folly, and don't let the tech-heads forget it.

Speaking of which, Texterity's TextCafe at  http://ww.textcafe.com offers a conversion service for publishers whose existing texts are bound up in just one format.  They promise automatic conversion of Word, PDF or Quark documents to OEB 1.0 (.html), Gemstar (.rb) or Microsoft Reader (.lit) formats with near original result quality.  Penguin Books have taken them at their word, so look forward to a stream of Penguin e-titles for those devices or software soon. Good going guys.

For novices, here's a quick summary of  current major e-file formats:
Adobe Acrobat/ Glassbook Reader software works with  .pdf files
Any web browser will read  .htm  files
Franklin's eBookMan will support a .fub file format
Gemstar's  Rocket eBook, REB 1100 & REB 1200 devices read .rb files
Microsoft Reader files for PCs, laptops and Pocket PCs are suffixed .lit
Palm OS devices with various e-text software (including Peanut Reader) recognise .prc
The TK3 reader from Nightkitchen (see April 2000 issue) reads .tk3 multimedia files. (Back)

It's earliest days yet for e-books in Aussie libraries, but already a few developments are emerging. Toowoomba with two Rocket eBooks leads the field, and the innovative Sue H. is planning to add two Franklin EbookMans shortly while laying the groundwork for a wider e- project. Brisbane has selected the new Toowong library for it's inaugural  e-book trials, & is looking to field three Rocket  eBooks and maybe Franklin eBookMans too. NetLibrary access may also be available to the lucky Toowoongians. Caboolture will use their Rocket eBook to promote libraries to schools and community groups, as will Gold Coast, while Ipswich is looking  enthusiastically to both  e-reader and PC availability of e-texts. Meanwhile  the strong support of the State Library of Queensland's  public libraries division offers the prospect of organisational clout and common purchasing power enhancing the prospect of Queensland continuing to lead  the Australian  e-way.

South of two borders the Yarra Plenty Regional Library ( http://www.yprl.vic.gov.au) has a SoftBook as Victoria's first library e-reader.

Sun Microsystems  are offering The Digital Library Tool Kit  as a free 555kb PDF file  from http://s2.sun.com/Search/sun?qt=Digital%20library%20tool%20kit   You can't get much better value than that folks for help with setting up your digital collection.

"The one certainty is that the electronic future is hammering at the gates, and the E-Library fast becoming reality.   An electronic revolution in library resources may rescue us from the financial and physical constraints that threaten to debilitate modern library services. The challenge is to implement strategies that deliver the services needed  while maintaining the valuable role of libraries as intelligent intermediaries in the new information age."(Back)

Microsoft kept its e-pot bubbling with the acquisition of Seattle-based Design Intelligence, a wunder.com  working on a nifty concept for the dynamic rendering of text format preferences across various e-media. By the time they're finished,  Microsoft Reader's so-so Clear Type might even just cut the mustard.

Meanwhile MS moved to cut the ground from under Japan's communal e-book project by linking with No.1 Japanese booksellers Kinokuniya to publish e-titles in Microsoft Reader on a new Web bookstore at http://www.kinokuniya.com

Last but not least, in Las Vegas November 2000 Bill Gates demonstrated a prototype Tablet PC which may be the  NEXT BIG THING in a couple of years - or a gamble that doesn't pay off.  We're talking here a permanently Web-connected, slimline, portable PC on which you hand write, & which looks something like the ancient's tablua rasa. It'll have all the power & capability of an office workstation and allegedly be the ideal e-book reader as well as transforming the universe, but it'll cost you plenty.

Comment: But is this yet another executive toy and travelling salesperson device?  The problem with Bill is that he's such a profit-hungry, techno-mesmerised geek that the idea of a genuine cheap &  universal e-reader just never seems to connect with his current operating system. (By the way, did you know that the NASDAQ stock abbreviation for Microsoft is MSFT?).(Back)

It's not heaven on a stick, but finally the dams are cracking and the first trickle of intelligently priced e-titles from major publishers have begun to appear. Simon & Schuster are experimentally offering a few e-titles at $US4.95 (versus $US13.95 for the print version.).  Del Ray are to sell Star Wars e-books at $US1.99, while Barnes & Noble has reduced prices of new electronic titles from its website to no more than $US7.95, with authors receiving 35% of the list price.  Meanwhile Random House is also paying authors a somewhat  misleading "50%" royalty.

Comment: Let me say it once again:
E-books can be much cheaper than printed books, and still allow for better royalties for authors and very satisfactory profits for corporate gluttons.  Best of all, private readers, students and libraries can now all benefit immensely by being able to buy or lend many more titles for their limited money. Moreover scholarship, at present in crisis, can enter a truly golden era because it will be financially possible to publish any worthwhile work and keep it available. But not if the mega-capitalist manipulators currently trying to swallow up the digital book revolution and divert it to their own devious ends keep cutting off our noses to spite each other. Until we get those prices well down - for both e-texts and e-readers - and until companies like Microsoft and Gemstar stop trying to force their digital book distribution models willy-nilly on the rest of us, the e-book revolution cannot achieve the success it deserves.(Back)

NetLibrary's web-accessed service for libraries is now offering  more than 30,000 titles, up over 100% since February a year ago & growing by the hour.....Questia (see April 2000 issue), essentially a search, read & cite service offered directly to students, launched last month (22 January); they also have more than 30,000 texts available. Rather than charge per book use like netLibrary, Questia costs $US150 for an annual subscription, but is also available by the month and even for 48 hour research binges......
Ebrary, another newie Web text service which will also provide journals, annuals, manuals & maps, & offers both direct and library models of access (fee $US0.25c per page for downloading or printing),  is expected to launch around May this year with a muster of unknown size.......
Lightening Source (see Oct. issue)  teamed with Digital River Inc. Jan.17 to offer themselves as complete e-commerce enablers to publishers and book retailers -they'll set up the whole deal from website to financial bite, and the e-book dollars will flow  as quick as the Amazon -oops - if you believe the hype. Still, Lightening's  POD performance & Digital's impressive client list could mean they'll do well on late-starting digitalisers.......
iUniverse.com (you don't get grander names than that) have secured a tidy $21 million seed  capital to expand  their POD (Print On Demand) digital book concern.  ...... Eight French Virgin Megastores are among twenty-nine Gallic retailers of the popular Cytale (see April & July newsletters)......
Dot.coms fell victims to their own hype last year, and some e-publishers and online bookstores suffered too. Fatalities included Bookmice.com and Bookface ......
From the Open eBook Standards Project on 27 November last came welcome new draft  recommendations  for e-book standards Version 1.0.1.  Check them out at .http://www.openebook.org/ps101draft.htm)...... (Back)

Score ten Aussie libraries in Queensland and one in Victoria with ebook readers, and
fingers being pointed that there are still  none in  New South Wales (the Premier State, oh yeah?).  In Canada three public library groupings circulate e-readers, led by Richmond, British Columbia, with twelve SoftBooks.   Progressive Scandinavia leads in  Europe, with three Danish libraries lending  Rocket  eBooks, and three Norwegian ones circulating  both types. Across the Tas. New Zealand has both types also at the Christchurch City Libraries. In the good ol'  U.S.A. eighteen states (up 50% on the last newsletter) now have libraries offering e-readers, mostly Rocket eBooks and a  few SoftBooks,  and Dorothy, the  first  library REB1100 has appeared in Kansas! (Back)

CyberRead (http://www.cyberread.com) Visually appealing e-bookstore linked to Glassbook & Peanut Reader
software; also offers authors & publishers direct opportunities, has a newsletter.

eBookAd  (http://www.ebookad.com)  Another bookstore, offering a broader range of formats.  Also presents news,
views & reviews, and has advanced e-title search.

Fictionwise (http://www.Fictionwise.com  ) successful  independent online e-publisher.  SF/mystery/horror categories
are specialities.

NextUp  (http://www.NextUp.com) provide a boon to the visually impaired with their TextAloud  program which
converts e-texts into audio books for either immediate use or saving as MP3 files; an improved version of their software
has recently been released.

Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu) a great classical digital library site with Greek & Latin texts, commentaries,
an atlas, coin images, art, archaeology and more.

Tumbleweed  (http://www.tumblebooks.com/indexwf.html) Just for kids  - "sound, animation and surprises" are
included in these multimedia kid-ebooks from Canada. Might be a lot of fun as well as helping children overcome
reading difficulties.

(Back)

Bruce's AUSTRALIAN E-BOOK NEWSLETTER is published quarterly, plus occasional special issues & E-flash updates. Back issues April, July & October 2000 available on request. If you wish to subscribe please email to brucep@acon.com.au, with the subject message Subscribe e-book.

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