NB: Archive pages are in general preserved in toto. Accordingly, outdated links on archive pages are not updated. However, they are deactivated if no longer working. In the latter case, where the links were represented in words and not URL format the previous existence of such links will no longer be apparent.

Coming soon... the No.1 Australian e-book information site.

Meanwhile you are welcome to browse the newsletter below.

B r u c e ' s

A U S T R A L I A N__E - B O O K__N E W S L E T T E R

***Vol.I, No.6, October 2001**

includes updates

(A New Year newsletter will be available in a few days time)

<<< for local and international digital book news  - to subscribe see information at base >>>

Best wishes for Christmas 2001, and may the New Year bring

a time of progress towards peace, prosperity & justice for all the

peoples of the world, & a rejection of terrorism, hate & violence.

1. Oz-e Feature Stories

Aussie Libraries Progressing In E-Book Trials

*Maroochy Public Library in S.E.Queensland began its e-book services on February 8 this year. They were fortunate enough to have one of the ten original Rocket eBooks in Queensland thanks to Sue Hutley's trailblazing endeavours (see previous newsletters). Maroochy added four (b&w) REB 1100 e-readers and one (colour) Softbook, to begin its electronic launch with six e-book readers (they have since ordered a further five REB devices).

How have they done? Reports Kate Abbott, Maroochy's Systems Librarian: " So far the response has been terrific from our clients, with a waiting list on all readers at this stage…Feedback has been varied, ranging from the ease of use, font sizes and back lighting to broader issues such as portability, number of titles in one reader and issues relating to disabilities.

Kate also won our hearts by adding " Your newsletter is very informative and I'm sure will be very useful for us - many thanks". Thank you, Kate!

*Sue Hutley at Toowoomba Public Library, meantime, now has over twenty e-readers in use. Sue does bemoan problems caused by poor customer service & software suppliers not offering adequate support, & notes issues with some library patron's ability to deal with current e-book technology. Contrary to what some might assume, however, many retired folk love them. The Queensland e-pioneer remains optimistic about the future of e-books in libraries.

*In NSW the Shorelink Library Network, North Sydney, is launching its e-book service currently (October), with twelve Softbook e-readers, three at each of its four branches. The plan is for each e-reader to carry ten to a dozen titles. As well, Shorelink is to offer around two hundred NetLibrary titles. Each e- reader may be reserved, & the borrower has to sign a special loan agreement to borrow the equipment. Mylee Joseph, Manager of Outreach Services at Willoughby City Library, is the e-book enthusiast at Shorelink. This column has happy memories of an evening spent at a Chinatown restaurant in May with Mylee and Victoria's Pam Saunders (thanks for the wine, Pam!)

Update: Mylee, Pam & Sue Hutley recently made an e-book report to the Australian Public Libraries conference in Melbourne - Follow the eBook road: eBooks in Oz Public Libraries - which will be featured in the December newsletter..

*In Victoria a trial of e-books for Victorian academic libraries is being managed by Sue Henczel of CAVAL Collaborative Solutions (CAVAL is a consortium of Victoria's university libraries & the State Library of Victoria). Six Victorian universities lease approximately 300 netLibrary titles for their patrons. Individual libraries may offer other electronic book opportunities, for example Deakin University Library links directly to various public domain e-texts from its OPAC catalogue.

*South Australia, WA & Tasmania …hello?

 

Bobby Graham, Australian e-publisher

Does living in Wagga Wagga disqualify you from making a mark in the Australian mainstream? Not if you have a smart brain, entrepreneurial flair & realise the potential of cyberspace to cancel out the tyranny of distance. Bobby Graham migrated from South Africa to the rural NSW town (pop. 57,000) in 1998, along with her husband & family. She came from a background in publishing, and while her husband took up a position with the local museum Bobby set up shop as a publisher.

The local possibilities were too limited however. Already Bobby had developed an interest in web-based/electronic publishing. As she puts it: "Electronic publishing showcases unknown authors whose work would never otherwise, for many reasons, see the light of day; it encourages reluctant readers, enticing them with digital gadgets; and it allows easy access to eBooks from anywhere in the world."

Bobby's website (bob-e-books ) was a year old in August, with twenty-five e-titles currently available (three of them are about Wagga Wagga, so the locals are well represented). Bobby says " I have yet to meet some of my authors, but we all continue to work extremely well at a distance… my books are bought in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Not bad for a cybergal from Wagga Wagga." Bobby also deals in print-on-demand paperbacks of her titles, to bridge the divide between those readers who are still paper devotees and those who feel comfortable with digital texts.

Bobby has all the problems of owning a small independent business in competition with the publishing giants. In some ways though the Web can be a great leveller, & Bobby may be one of those who will show whether it is still possible for the talented & persistent independent to retain a place in the Aussie sunshine. (Back)

Thanks for permissions to eBookWeb, where Bobby has a series of original articles.

*

2. GEMSTAR Will Slash e-Reader Prices

Gemstar CEO Henry Yuen admitted recently that the company's REB e-reader devices (made by Thomson Media under the RCA label) are over-priced, & announced they will soon be much cheaper, although not immediately. The colour REB 1200, successor to the Softbook, will apparently fall by half to $US350. Meanwhile the black & white REB 1100 (which replaced NuvoMedia's popular Rocket eBook) will reportedly drop even more, by 60% to c. $US120. That would put it within sight of the $100 price tag deemed a critical level for mass acceptance by many e-book experts.

Meanwhile the Gemstar supremo confirmed that total sales of all REB devices have so far only reached around 50,000, despite huge & expensive promotion attempts. Considering that for example there are more than ten million people who can potentially read e-books on Palm-style devices, this represents a giant failure for the Gemstar initiative. This result was no surprise to commentators, who recalled that when Gemstar took over Nuvomedia & torpedoed its inclusive e-book strategy, it sacrificed much support & goodwill among the burgeoning e-book community. Earlier, Gemstar had upgraded the REB 1100's software and offered $200 free e-book content to new e-reader purchasers between August 9 & Sept.30, in a failed attempt to stimulate sales.

Comment: We could say, we told you so Henry. Your bad-vibe, negative strategy was doomed from the outset. Henry, we told you so. There, we've said it!

*** Readers may recall that Gemstar shut down the Rocket Library, a free Web collection of thousands of "RocketEdition" e-books built up by enthusiasts & sponsored by Rocket eBook originators NuvoMedia, as part of their community-based approach. But on July 14 last, volunteers supported by the non-profit organisation eBooksFrance relaunched the Rocket Library as the Phoenix Library (http://www.phoenix-library.org), The new library is broader- based, offering titles in several languages & a wide range of formats (Adobe, Microsoft, MobiPocket & Franklin as well as Rocket/ REB reader editions).

Congratulations to those who put in this hard work - it shows that contrary to the old saw, sometimes it's the nice guys who finish first. (Back)

Update: Barnesandnoble.com are no longer selling Gemstar e-book titles. They remain available at Gemstar's own ebookstore & at Powells.com.

3. Special Feature: the Chinese E-Book

4. DRM Drama: Lessons of the Sklyarov Affair

In developments as exciting as any Hollywood thriller, FBI agents on Monday July 16, 2001 staked out McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, & at 9am arrested an about-to-depart Russian national, one Dmitry Sklyarov, aged 26. No he wasn't a spy or a terrorist, just a personable civilian computer programmer attending a convention.

Sklyarov, a graduate student who is married with two children, worked for ElcomSoft Ltd, a Moscow-based Russian software company. ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR) program will crack the encryption on Adobe Acrobat's eBook formatted titles (which then allows them to be freely copied as Adobe's ordinary .pdf files). However it only works on books purchased legally in the first place, answering the complaint of buyers that they can't move their own copy around (i.e. transfer it to another computer or handheld), or lend it to a friend for that matter, as they could with a print copy.

Sklyarov had just attended DEFCON 9 (which is in effect the annual world Hackers Convention) at the Alexis Park Hotel in Las Vegas, where he gave a talk appropriately called "eBook Security: Theory and Practice". He explained that Adobe's Acrobat eBookReader (previously called the GlassBook) has a Document Key which if obtained would allow a user to change permissions in a book's DRM Voucher, & thus in effect "open" the e-book, which could then be saved as a standard Adobe .pdf file if desired. This document key can be calculated if you know the "Private Key", which along with a "Public Key" is part of a "RSA" key pair generated when the book is purchased. The rest of Sklyarov's talk explained how the AEBPR software actually worked, & other technical information of interest to code makers & breakers.

Microsoft & other big companies also attend the fabled DEFCON to try & recruit the best hacker whizzes to "cross over" to lucrative employment opportunities as code writers & security experts. But instead of attracting a job offer Sklyarov was arrested by the FBI when departing Las Vegas. He was swiftly in custody awaiting extradition to California for trial on criminal charges under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), laid because of a complaint by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Sklyarov is facing potential penalties of up to five years jail & a fine of $US500,000 on each of five charges. So in theory he could be jailed for 25 years all told.

What prompted the heavy-handed Adobe action? In facrAdobe had already tried in vain to kick the Russian company off the Web, & succeeded in forcing a U.S. based e-commerce site to stop selling the AEBPR. The Russian company had evidently suspended sales of the AEBPR software before Sklyarov was arrested, after only a handful of copies were sold in any case. So the incident seemed to paint Adobe as overly paranoid, vindictive because their (rather weak) encrypting had been breached, & unreasonable in going after an individual with extreme criminal charges rather than just prosecuting the company he works for (which also faces charges).

Soon after Adobe was faced with a firestorm of protest. Seasoned hackers led the charge, a scenario scary enough to make any corporate suit go white around the gills. As well nearly 200 Linux enthusiasts, programmers and digerati attended a fund-raiser for Sklyarov's legal defense in San Francisco, and protests were held in many cities. A BoycottAdobe.com website was also launched, & the Net civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined the criticism of Adobe. Even the Electronic Publisher's Coalition condemned the use of criminal charges against an individual, although their print colleagues supported it.

Smarting under the attacks, Adobe realised that its "aggressive protection" of its DRM position was fast becoming a public relations nightmare. So the company changed its tune, meeting with the EFF on July 23 & issuing a joint statement in which Adobe withdrew support for the criminal prosecution of Sklyarov (as distinct from ElcomSoft), & recommended his release from custody. This decision had no practical effect however, as the prosecution was now solely under U.S. Govt. jurisdiction.

After 3 weeks in custody Sklyarov was formally charged in a Federal District Court on August 6, then granted bail on a $50,000 bond posted by his employer Vladimir Katalov. He is restricted to Northern California until trial, & had to surrender his passport. On August 30 Sklyarov pleaded not guilty to the charges, and since then a prominent San Francisco defence Attorney, John Keker, has agreed to represent him on a pro bono publico basis. Sklyarov will next appear in San Jose federal court on Nov. 26 for a pretrial hearing.

Meanwhile in Germany in another twist to the story, publishers Springer-Verlag accused a web site owner of violating copyright by illegally distributing an Adobe .pdf copy of a new text they publish. Ironically the book was "Handbook of Print Media: Technologies and Production Methods," by a Professor Helmut Kipphan of Heidelberg University. The culprit turned out to be a student living in Munich, whose computer & software were seized by German police. This student had "cracked" the copying-restriction protection of the book by means of the "Advanced PDF Password Recovery" program, another piece of ElcomSoft software.

At that point the tale became both bizarre and more than a little murky. It soon transpired that ElcomSoft's main customers are, surprisingly, in law enforcement (and in the security departments of large corporations - surely not like, um, Microsoft?). For ElcomSoft's password- recovery software is used - by police in particular - to investigate the contents of computers whose passwords are not known. But could it be that such software thus "cracked" is legally supposed to be inviolate under the DCMA, the very law with which ElcomSoft was prosecuted?

The plot thickened further, for who was the zealous U.S. Attorney overseeing the Sklyarov/ElcomSoft prosecution? Why, not some little-known eager beaver but none other than Robert Mueller, President George W. Bush's nomination as the new Director of the FBI. Was someone keen to put ElcomSoft out of business, and if so, who & why? Or was all this merely coincidence?

Around the same time, September 10, it was reported that draft legislation for a Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSA) in the USA plans to make illegal the manufacture or trade of any "interactive digital device" that does not have a "certified security technology" embedded in it. Hardware manufacturers would be required to create and install a government-approved anti-copying scheme in PCs and other digital devices. As well anyone who makes "available to the public" a copyrighted work with protections removed or altered could face stiff fines - and possibly a jail sentence - if they removed the copy protection, the report ran. It seemed that the supporters of the big corporations which nowadays own most large publishers were flexing their political & legal muscles. So in fact it may be impossible soon anyhow for those who buy new American-made PCs or their clones to engage in illegal copying -although the cleverer crackers are unlikely to be deterred for long.

Sklyarov supporters point out that the AEBPR program which caused all the fuss is legal in Russia, Germany & Scandinavia, where data sellers must allow for backup copies. Indeed the DRM on Adobe e-books is probably itself illegal in Russia & some other countries, so complaints of hypocritical U.S. economic pressures & bullying have been made in some quarters. On the other hand, ElcomSoft does try to sell its decrypting products worldwide irrespective of local law, so it's difficult not to acknowledge that in that respect they are indeed "DRM pirates".

So how much of a problem is e-book piracy? Gemstar, Microsoft & Adobe have all fallen victim to the arcane arts of the cracker in the last twelve months. Indeed as any truly computer-savvy person is aware, impregnable software is a myth, & those who promise it are ignorant, deluded or confidence tricksters, take your pick.

U.K. Internet monitoring company Envisional estimated late in August that there are 7,267 pirated e-books available online. However the striking feature of their study was that most of these don't derive from the cracking of encryption, but from paper copies which have been scanned by hand & only then turned into digital files & placed on the Net. In other words, much of the current DRM hoopla is misplaced. Pirated books are still a lot like pirated T-shirts. Moreover pirated copies often stimulate the sale of legitimate versions; a factor that blinkered company bean counters seldom take into account. The Adobe action reads increasingly like mindless overkill, the kind of petty viciousness major corporations descend into whenever they allow company policies to be overly influenced by testosterone-crazed corporate lawyers with piranha mindsets.

But how then can copyright be protected? If it is made clear to all that such copying is illegal, & those who operate the websites or user groups where it happens are warned & their service providers notified - & they are prosecuted in civil suits if they really won't desist - then most people won't bother with such "stolen" books. And if e-books aren't over-priced then the temptation to obtain them unlawfully will not be very great anyhow. The real issue is, where should the boundary lines lie between publishers and the purchasers of digital books concerning what may be done with such books?

Does the resolution of these DRM dramas lie in ever more sophisticated encrypting or ever more tightly secured devices? That seems unlikely. Perhaps, rather, if publishers want success and profits from e-publishing then it's far more important that they agree on a number of quite different issues. Such as common technical standards & publishing mechanisms, & simple and satisfactory methods of marketing. Not to forget refusing to succumb to the temptation to rip off their customers with unreasonable prices and excessive restrictions, failings which may stimulate the desire among cyber-heads to "get even".

It's critical that e-book suppliers work to eliminate the confusion and suspicion surrounding their products. Such problems are partly their own fault, because of fratricidal e-book product development trends. Instead publishers should think about finding more common ground with their customers, and engaging in sufficient mutual support of their industry fellows to nourish a thriving e-book community. E-publisher success will follow these improvements. The answer really is out there - if what is going on "in here" is attended to first. (Back)

Update: Dimitrri Sklyarov's latest court proceedings on November 26 resulted in dates being set in 2002 for two hearings in the affair. On 4th March Judge Ronald Whyte of the San Jose U.S. District Court will hear an appeal challenging U.S. jurisdiction in the case. Later, on April 1, the same judge will preside over a second appeal contesting the DCMA itself as unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment. Key question: who will get the pinch & the punch, & who will be the April Fool?

Latest Update: In a dramatic December finale to this year's Sklyarov saga, U.S. Justice Dept attorneys have agreed to conditionally suspend charges against the Russian programmer for a minimum of one year. After that the charges will be dropped altogether provided. Sklyarov abides by the terms of the agreement. Moreover he will be free to return to Russia meantime.

The catch is that the 26 year old Muscovite must testify for the prosecution in a parallel case against his employer Elcomsoft. However in an unusual judicial pairing he will also be permitted to testify for the defence in the same case. The surprising development ends much of the controversy surrounding the use of U.S. judicial power against overseas citizens in such a commercial matter, a concern heightened by news just before Christmas that complainant Adobe is itself now being sued for alleged software piracy.

*

5.Innovative Marketing methods Hint at E-Book Future.

Few would deny that to start with e-book selling & promotion was phase-locked into either traditional means which might not work with a digital medium, or a very few new concepts which were little more than hazardous leaps into the unknown. Now a range of new methods of marketing is testing how the public really want to buy their e-books. Those methods that succeed will help define a shift to a more viable commercial basis for the industry. Some recent examples that this column found appealing:

*One completely new model of e-book access is that offered by entrepreneurs NetPack, operating from the site http://www.ebooksinabox.com. At a bookshop or convenience store you buy a small physical package which looks like a miniature book - called an e-book in a box. What's in it? A small card with a unique serial number, representing your book. All you have to do then is take the pack home, go to the "e-book in a box" website, type your card number in the window provided and press the send button. Your e-book will then be automatically downloaded to your PC. (As you've already paid for it there are no financial transactions or other rigmarole to go through online.) NetPack have signed agreements with retail chains with over 8,000 stores & the boxes will be widely available for Christmas shopping. A pilot libraries programme will also be launched soon.

Comment: Simple & innovative, & may help bridge the gap to the mainstream.

*Cavendish Publishing at http://www.cavendishpublishing.com/ebooks.asp is now offering a range of law e-texts (87 at last count), including such local yokels as "Essential Australian Administrative Law"; "Essential Australian Criminal Law"; & "Contract Law in the South Pacific". What's more interesting to non-legal types is their sales pitch - you don't have to buy the whole book.

By registering you can have a free time-limited preview (five minutes), and then choose to buy any combination of chapters. You can do this across texts too, to assemble your own uniquely relevant jumbo reference work at a fraction of the full cost. But as they say in the steak knife business, there's more! You can buy only "view" rights if you want, as the cheapest solution to a reference need, or "print" rights to keep a permanent copy as a .pdf file. The former are instantly upgradeable to the latter if you change your mind later, with just a mouse click & of course more money. If you go the whole hog the full e-texts as permanent files are discounted 30% from print prices.

Comment: A range of possibilities here, giving the customer a useful set of options.

*Then there's Adobe puppy ebrary, which has launched its first trial site - actually part of Pearson plc's Learning Network. The "ebrarian" software allows customers to view & search copyright titles for free & with no registration required - they only have to pay to print out portions on a per page basis. A bit like an online photocopier connected to a vast digital e-text base. The site included "InfoTools", a service enabling users to link to a variety of resources from a desired word or phrase.

Comment: Great for students, casual researchers & anyone on a straitened budget.

* French Cybook e-reader folk Cytale recently trialled another new marketing concept for 6 days, a Cindarellaesque gallicism called "Le Livre de Minuit" ("The Book of Midnight"). They daily offered customers free eBooks - but ones that erased themselves at the very witching hour. While speed readers of the world might rejoice, the rest got the opportunity, in effect, to read a trial portion of their own choosing to see if they really wanted the book. Those that did could then go on to purchase a permanent copy.

Comment: A good deal for customers, & sound enough to become a permanent preview mode

. *RosettaBooks offered a similar idea for a month from 7 August for the Agatha Christie title "And Then There Were None". However Rosetta's offering cost a dollar, but the read period was for an undated ten hours in toto, with no restriction on the number of individual read "dips". An opportunity to then buy a permanent copy for $US4.99 was also provided.

Comment: If you just want to read a book but not keep it, & your library can't provide it, here at last is the kind of excellent value e-publishers should consider offering on a permanent basis, for at least their backlists.

*Badosa.com, a Spanish e-publisher, offers book-buyers the chance to add a customised dedication page to any e-book purchased as a gift for family or friends.

Comment: Bit of a gimmick, but takes advantage of enhanced digital possibilities to add a pleasant personal touch.

(Back)

.

*

 

6. EbookWeb Launch Well Received

EBookWeb, the "anchor of all e-book sites" and successor to eBookNet, was officially launched on July 4, 2001 at http://www.eBookWeb.org/. It has continued to consolidate its leading position since.

Site features include digital book news (in the areas of technology, publishing and general items), opinion columns, forums, general e-book background information, book reviews, publisher information and hardware and software resources.

In contrast to eBookNet's lush presentation, the site design has tended to minimalism so far. EBookWeb is still a work in progress, with some features incomplete and others still to come. Already, though, it has established itself well. And thanks to the hard work of Glenn Sanders & Wade Roush, & the goodwill & contributions of the e-book community, the site is steadily gaining depth & commanding the respect of its authoritative predecessor.

E-book.com.au is proud to be listed as a supporter of eBookWeb. (Back)

*

7. Conferences and Reports

The big 'e': e-book, e-publishing, and e-technology - a collection management perspective - a full day forum sponsored by the Library Board of Victoria & VICLINK, at the State Library of Victoria on 3 August 2001. Introduced by Judy Peppard of the Library Network Unit. Pammie Saunders spoke of her overseas digital book experiences, Margaret Smith of the SLV examined future perspectives, representatives of netLibrary, RMIT Publishing, Common Ground Publishing & Telstra downloaded their 22c worth & "The Panel" were fortunately more restrained than their TV counterparts.

Electronic Books, the good, the bad, the inevitable? Not to be outdone, from the leading-edge north & presented by Qld. University Libraries' Office of Cooperation, a one day seminar held 11 September at the Uni. of Queensland, St Lucia. Opened by UQ Librarian Janine Schmidt, with nine speakers including CQU's Margaret Appleton, Wendy Horwood from Brisbane City Council Library Service, Kate Abbott of Maroochy Shire Library & Carolyne Cohn of Blackwells, followed by practical demonstrations.

24 September - 2 October, in Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane & Sydney; Rick Lugg & Ruth Fischer of R2 Consulting, presented seminars entitled E-Books for Libraries - Mapping a New World. Yes, the fabled e-book mappie thingies people!

ECDL 2001, the 5th annual European Digital Libraries Conference in Darmstadt, Germany. Mike Keller of Stanford Uni. floated the fun with the euphoric "Digital Libraries -panacea or recreational chemical?", but those serious-minded Europeans crashed proceedings back to earth with topics like "Fusion Approaches for Mapping between Heterogeneous Ontologies". A panel discussed "What's holding up the development of georeferenced Digital Libraries?" What indeed?

Charleston Conference (Issues in Book & Serial Acquisition) In South Carolina Oct.31-Nov.3 E-books & digital issues will be hot topics, & they'll make sure participants stay awake by springing a provocative "The Book is Dead" session.

E-Book 2001, the biggie. 4th annual Electronic Book conference - yes it's been that long already! To be held Nov 5-7, with some trepidation, in the International Trade Center, Washington DC. Pray that terrorists have all had their fangs cut out by then. Librarian of Congress James Billington is booked as a star speaker, and ten major sessions will cover the e-book spectrum, with a focus on authors, applications and accessibility.

Econtent 2001, in Santa Clara, California Nov 12-13. E-people, companies, products & issues, from an industry perspective.

3rd e-ICOLC (Internat'l Coalition of Library Consortia in Europe) 29 Nov.-1 Dec.2001, in Espoo, near Helsinki, Finland. Trends in e-publishing will launch proceedings, while on the social side of things participants may later get birched in an authentic Finnish sauna, as a warm-up to dinner & entertainment (or is that the entertainment?) . (Back)

*

8. E-Reader News

*Hiebook mishap. This newsletter took delivery of a special advance order Korean hiebook late in August. But horrors, although the device was well-packed, on arrival via FedEx courier the coverless screen was cracked & the hiebook internally wrecked. This newsletter was not impressed by such careless handling, made worse when errant shippers FedEx (now on our bad guys list) offered only a trifling $A36 compensation, based on weight.
In the upshot we proposed to makers Korea E-Book Inc that they include a clip-on, detachable plastic cover to protect the hiebook's LCD screen during transport. Spokesman Young Seo promised " We will consider it...seriously". Korea E-Book will also now replace the deceased e-reader. By the way,someone will have to come up with a descriptor for dead e-readers - how about "deeders"? Or you could say"it's foxgloved", as in killed by digitalis. The hiebook (see June newsletter) began shipping on October 14. # Memo: Don't order one by mail unless full insurance is explicitly included folks...and ask for a cover.

Update: A replacement device has arrived, now shipping in a handsome black leather cover. Thanks Korea E-Book, that's more like it! First impressions: young groovers will love the MP3 features, image display, games & other distractions. Tips: For book reading the font may seem too light - if so, reset it to bold in the font menu & all is well. The page forward/back buttons are a bit heavy on the touch, so you may prefer the alternative of a light tap on the edge of the screen. Don't forget to amaze your friends with the scribble (draw), then clear feature. The electronics aren't perfect overall, but you can always get around problems without too much fuss. Don't forget to put your name & contact details in "System" in case you lose your device.

.Meanwhile hiebook software Reader For PC Version 2.24e is now available if you perversely wish to read hiebook formatted titles on your PC. Read what? Well e-publisher Fictionwise.com is now offering its entire catalogue of over a thousand titles in the hiebook format (they already support Adobe, Franklin, Microsoft, Palm & Rocket). There's also HiBuilder, software which you can use to make your own hiebook format e-book, or use to convert your personal documents for reading on the new device.

*The Franklin eBookman, in addition to some significant first-model flaws, was heavily criticised for a lack of accessible content for its proprietary reader software (although the popular French e-reader software MobiPocket may also be downloaded into the device, allowing access to a range of e-books from European publishers). This content drought eased on June 26 with a number of agreements for titles to appear in the Franklin format, including a range of new & backlist books from the popular St Martin's Press. Meanwhile Seattle's Alexandria Digital Library announced that its full 700 title library would also appear in the Franklin .fub format, while Franklin has eased the pain for corporate types by arranging free access to some features of the Wall Street Journal Online.

Update: Franklin has released a keenly awaited upgrade for the eBookman software. The OS is improved as is the Desktop Manager, and there's more effective memory available due to better software compression. A new "Virtual Tour" provides an effective overview, & mitigates previous setup nightmares... Compensating for the scary "file disappearance" problem is the ability now to back up everything onto an MMC card. That plan to include a Microsoft Reader version has been dropped, but better news is that MobiPocket Reader & the MobiPocket Web Companion (allowing you to grab news online) are now included. Franklin's own Reader (version 1.5) now supports images as well as text. Navigation is better, as is searching, & hyperlinks are underlined. Sound quality for MP3 is enhanced too for both playing & recording.

There's more! EBookman prices have fallen too, in the USA anyway. In American dollars the top of the range EBM-911 model falls from $229 to $199, and the mid-range EBM 901 falls from $179 to $149. And if you buy before February 2002 mail back an included offer you can save an additional minimum of $30 on any of the three models. We're awaiting news on Australian prices.

*GoReader's advanced educational model e-reader will be used in Texas Instrument's TI-Navigator wireless learning system. Says the press release " Teachers will be able to customise content and testing to individual student's needs while establishing an interactive learning environment capable of real-time progress evaluation." in this two way system. But at $US960 including education discount, the goReader is not feasible in the broader Australian higher education market until it gets a lot cheaper.

*Handspring reduced its Visor device prices on August 20 in the hugely competitive PDA market. Some models fell only 15%, but the Visor Platinum came down 20% to $US199 & the Visor Edge a full quarter to $US299. Palm earlier (April) had chopped around 15% from several models, while HP, Compaq & Casio made smaller cuts to their rival products.

* The widespread use of Palm-type devices for reading e-books has been a significant - and to many unexpected - development in the last two years. Whether it be with the Palm (formerly Peanut) Reader, Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palms, MobiPocket or any of the other software available, smaller devices have struck a winning chord for use as e-readers in many countries, particularly among teenagers & young adults. Do not underestimate the power of… Gameboy?

*Well, yes! Believe it or not, there is now a Game Boy Book Reader too. MQP Electronics sponsors a page (http://www.mqp.com/fun/gb.htm) where enthusiasts teach you how to load books to the device, with a link to some free classic adventure novels provided. Just when you thought your games-addicted child was doomed to functional illiteracy for the rest of his or her square-eyed existence, you can seize the gizmo & in a supreme act of parental revenge install BOOKS on it. But don't tell your kids who told you this!

*Philips & E Ink displayed working prototypes of an Electronic Ink display device at the Society for Information Display's June exhibition in San Jose, Northern California. The two companies hope for commercialisation of their joint project in 2003.

*Other recent devices with e-reader potential include Fujitsu's Stylistic LT c-500 web tablet, which has an 8.4in SVGA colour LCD screen & runs full Windows software; Ericsson's HS210 Cordless Screen Phone, which uses Bluetooth short-range wireless technology connected to a local base station for applications including remote Internet connection; & the Qbe Vivo, a high-powered web tablet running at 700 MHz with a huge 12GB hard drive. The latter is now available for pre-production order. Panasonic have also announced (25 September) the Toughbook 01, a "ruggedized" handheld running Windows® CE 3.0. It weighs 1 pound and measures 6.8 by 3.9 shock & moisture-resistant inches, & might be favoured by hardbitten "road warriors". Be warned, none of these are inexpensive (the Qbe Vivo sells for $US1,999!) By comparison, the Palm m105, at as low as $US199, is a basic b&w PDA beastie which hasn't reviewed well so far but could just scrape into the passable small e-reader class. And out October 4 from Samsung is the SPH-I300 Sprint PCS Phone, a Palm OS-based wireless handset with a full color screen. It's a PDA & a phone, & can download "any of the more than 10,000 available Palm OS compatible applications" including of course e-books. Price $US500.

Also out now or by Christmas 2001, a plethora of new models of the Pocket PC. Compaq, Casio, HP, Toshibia, Audiovox, NEC, Intermec & Symbol are all in the line-up, with most sporting 64 Mb RAM, weighing 6-7 ounces and offering 10-14 hours battery life. Prices range between $US499 & $US649. The exception is the Audiovox Maestro - admittedly you only get 32Mb RAM, but the deal is you receive both the Maestro Pocket PC and Audiovox's CDM-9100 mobile phone for $US400 the two.

ATTENTION PDA USERS: A major web centre for all PDA users is http://www.pdastreet.com, with linked resources for numerous handhelds including Palm, Visor, Pison, Windows CE & lesser known varieties - and devices running Pocket Linux. There's also pdabuzz.com, another goodie site which is - well, buzzy. (Back)

*

9. Formats & Software

*OeB 1.0.1, an update of the Open eBook Forum's original standard XML-based e-book format specification, was announced on 20 August 2001. As the name suggests this is a refinement rather than a major change, OeB 2.0 still being some time off.

*Texterity's Textcafe file conversion service (see February edition) will now provide simultaneous e-book editions in six OEB-compliant formats, Gemstar (.rb), Adobe (.pdf), MS Reader (.lit), HTML, XML & basic OEB itself. In an August 29 agreement with Time Warner's iPublish the latter will use the service to quickly distribute its e-book titles to a range of retailers.

Comment: A worthy advance towards the holy grail of the e-world, all e-books being equally available for users of any hardware or software from time of release.

*Meanwhile e-publishers Bookzone have developed their own in-house Digital Conversion service to provide multiple formats for their e-releases. Steps such as these are the bricks and mortar of coherent e-publishing at this time, given that no one format is likely to become dominant in the near future.

*Quark has released eBook Export 1.0 for turning QuarkXpress/Passport documents into e-books in Microsoft's .lit format.

*AportisDoc Mobile from Aportis Technology, e-text software previously available for Palm devices, is now offered in a version for any handheld devices running Windows.

*Not to forget those Mac folks using the venerable Apple Newton! Iverson Software of Minneapolis, a worthy independent, have an eclectic range of e-books specially Newton formatted (they're unsurprisingly called NewtonBooks). See http://www.iversonsoftware.com/business/ebooks.html.

*DeepReader. No not about erotica, it's shareware for Palm-style devices, to make reading e-books on this type of PDA (OS 3.5 & above) more of a booklike experience. With improved formatting & a choice of fonts.

*Popular French e-reader software MobiPocket, widely used on PDA-sized devices such as Palms & the Franklin eBookman, has now appeared in version 4.0. MobiPocket has also signed a cooperation agreement with Franklin Electronic Publishers, to offer additional information services & office applications for the eBookman as well as e-books. Note that MobiPocket is part-owned by investment group Vivendi Universal, who recently bought U.S. publisher Howard Mifflin. But on October 18 it was confirmed that Franklin itself has also taken up an undisclosed stake in MobiPocket.

* Copernic Summarizer is software which "analyses texts, pinpoints key concepts, and quickly produces allegedly concise and accurate summaries composed of the most important sentences. It's reported to work with file types.doc, .txt, .pdf, .rtf, .url, .htm & .html; in English, French, German and Spanish. You can run it on a PDA or integrate it into a Web browser. The demo. failed to activate for me, but the concept is intriguing & hopefully not too flawed. If you want to take a look it's at http://www.copernic.com/products/summarizer. (Back)

*

10.The DOI Polloi

*Diddley doi, doi doi. DOI actually stands for Digital Object Identifier, and the International DOI Foundation (IDF) has been diddling away since 1997 to develop a system in which unique DOIs will enable "resolving to multiple locations."

Stripped of the gobbledegook, this means that typing in a DOI on the Net will give you a set of relevant information such as URLS, text data, audio-visual resources & email addresses, instead of the anarchic spread of goodies, not-so-goodies & hopelessly mystifying irrelevancies thrown your way in a typical search engine foray. AND you can bring them up without having to leave your current web page - in fact they're on a pop-up screen. However it's a controlled entity -the owner of the DOI generates & configures its content, & updates it at will. Lots of potential for both good & evil there, folks.

Researchers, libraries & ordinary web surfers can immediately see benefits, & obviously this concept may have a lot of future application as a component of e-books. As well it can serve as a unifying principle in the field of digital content management. The downside? Hope nobody is thinking of charging for them (but they are!), & for the lazy student it could be a means of getting away with making no real effort. Plus some fool might start inserting annoying ads…

Anyhow, the DOI people have honed in on e-books, in an initiative revealed in August at BookExpo America, with support from publishers Random House, Pearson, Wiley & McGraw-Hill. There are some serious working groups beavering away as I write. In fact, there's lots of plotting & scheming going on, & the air is heavy with the overripe scent of grandiose and opportunistic metadata manoeuvring (which is quite as bad as it sounds). Four DOI registries are already running (CrossRef. Content Directions and Learning Objects Network in the USA, and Enpia in Asia). But rival concepts exist too, & the trouble is, if all these groups don't get their acts together, the result will be an unholy mess.. (Back)

*

11.Evil Empire Update

*Microsoft Releases E-Book Tools. MS have announced the forthcoming release in early October of Read in Microsoft Reader (RMR) 1.1 & the Dictionary Authoring Kit 1.0 (DAK). RMR 1.1 is an updated version of earlier software, and enables users of Word 2000 & Word 2002 to easily create e-books in Microsoft Reader format from their Word documents, including graphics. It means that anyone who can create a Word document can now create an e-book- waal, a Microsoft format e-book anyhow. RMR 1.1 is installed into Word, where an extra button will, when clicked on, automatically create an MS (.lit) e-book file without any fuss. Strangely though, the button is called READ (well, perhaps not so strange from the folks who put Shut Down in the Start menu).

Comment: MS gets points for this one - simplicity in use, not more complexity, is what the e-book world needs more abundantly to convince perennial doubters and win over ordinary folk.

. Also scheduled in early October is the first version of the Dictionary Authoring Kit. As the name implies this e-tool will enable the creation of digital dictionaries, so far in English, French, German, Spanish & Italian, or other reference guides. You'll eventually be able to keep a digital reference shelf just a click or two away on your PC or e-reader.

Attention all Imperial Stormtroopers: Microsoft e-book enthusiasts - or even detractors - now have their own "unmoderated and independent" forum. It may be subscribed to by emailing: ms_reader-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

*Microsoft Reader Version 2.0. Released early October 2001. Version 2 of MS's e-reader software is obsessed with DRM -but does allow for more manoeuvrability in this area. In fact it supports three security levels, called DRM 2, DRM 3 & DRM 5. DRM 2 is the lowest level - straightforward encrypted .lit files. DRM 3 files have purchaser information unalterably preserved - they say - on the book's cover page. DRM 5 level e-books are restricted to the purchaser in the sense that they can only be read by means registered to that person, although up to four of those means may be permitted. Which is a lot more generous than Adobe is allowing for! (Given the sorry Sklyarov saga, this column will take bets that Adobe is forced to raise their game on this issue in their own next software update). Other new MS Reader 2.0 features include improved e-text navigation tools, such as a "Riffle" click to jump any distance within a book.

*Unfortunately for Microsoft their DRM measures were an irresistible challenge to "crackers". An American programmer has worked out how to remove security settings from Microsoft e-books just as Russian Dmitry Sklyarov was able to do with Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader files. Then his software unencrypts them, & hey presto -open source book. It's all academic though - after what happened to Sklyarov, the unnamable US whiz is keeping his program strictly out of the public domain. Microsoft's Dick Brass shrugged off the incident with the comment "Piracy is not a question of 'if" but "when.'" Another Microsoft spokesperson, Jeff Ramos, indicated that Microsoft's approach would be legal rather than technological if such software were to be distributed. See Editorial.

*Meanwhile Microsoft had it's own legal headaches. InterTrust Technologies Corporation (of California) is suing MS for "appropriating" the DRM technology it uses. The company alleges that MS apparently found developing its own DRM too much of a chore & just plumb went and stole InterTrusts. Gosh, Microsoft wouldn't do anything naughty like that would they? The US District Court for Northern California will be judging the rip-off claim.

*Microsoft is making available the source code of Windows CE 3.0 - used in some handheld computing devices - to software developers. But the offer comes with strings attached. Traditionally a fiery denouncer of the "Open Source" concept, MS is touting a "Shared Source Licence" which users will not be able to utilise for commercial purposes. Plus they must sign up for the Microsoft "Passport" service.

* A clever MS move online is through OverDrive Inc. (see also Super-Briefs). The latter announced a new suite of ePublishing services for the Evil Empire's ambitious .NET initiative. Overdrive's Connect will " instantly convert website articles, documents, books, manuals and just about any (web) page" into Microsoft Reader eBooks. It's claimed to be "a one-click feature to save an article or reference document from the Web for reading on a Pocket PC or notebook.'' The source website can optionally specify copyright protection features &, you guessed it, advertisements for the instant e-book offered. Very slick. (Back)

*

*Second-guessing Microsoft's Pocket PC strategy, Adobe's latest version 7.0 of its PageMaker allows publishing of .pdf files to handheld devices such as PDAs & wireless web tablets, in addition to the usual desktops & laptops.

*Adobe has also had a quid each way by cheekily invading "Evil Empire territory" in releasing a beta version (Sept. 24) of an Acrobat Reader for Pocket PC. So Adobe & Microsoft are shaping up for a "battle of the handhelds" as the latest episode in their gruelling slug-out for e-book software supremacy. Who's ahead in the small device arena? Adobe so far, if recent statistics are anything to go by. For since the Acrobat Reader for Palms was released on May 29 this year, more than one million downloads of this free software have occurred. Meanwhile Palm is shipping Adobe's eBook Reader 2.1 software with the Palm m505 device.

*Moving quicker than their arch-rival, Adobe also announced version 2.2 (already) of the Acrobat eBook Reader. The upgrade includes better large page viewing, and allows for printing to non-PostScript printers, panning & scrolling, & the ability to install a default page view beforehand in a published text

* And then there's Adobe's XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform). North Plains Systems Corp. announced on Sept. 26 the release of an" I-Piece plug-in" for XMP, a "common metadata framework" which " allows content to be applied effortlessly between print, Web, eBooks and other media". XMP will be integrated into the next generation of all Adobe applications. Enthused Susan Altman Prescott, Adobe V. P. of Cross-Media Publishing: " With XMP, we have made great strides toward a future in which people can receive visually rich content anytime, anywhere and on any device.'' Provided they're with Adobe that is. Stand by for the sincerest form of flattery from known rivals.

*On 13 October Adobe also announced international versions of its Acrobat eBook Reader, in French, Spanish & German, for both PC & Macintosh. But strewth, cobbers, Aussie English was not given a Guernsey.

* Adobe does seem to attract the developers. Idelix Software for example have come up with PliablePaper, a plug-in for Acrobat, allowing users to magnify any portion of a PDF document using a "virtual lens". What's new in that? The feature zooms a screen portion for closer inspection while neatly providing a gradual transition around it, scaling surrounding areas down to their normal state to maintain visual continuity. Great on maps! See an example at: http://www.seyboldreports.com/Specials/HotPicksSSF2001/pdf.html. (Back)

*The University of Sydney Library's scholarly electronic text centre SETIS has been awarded funding to publish e-text versions of four significant Sydney University Press titles, USL Collections Coordinator Ross Coleman revealed in an August email to fellow staff. The project also entails establishing a website & platform to allow for further e-publishing of existing works, and possibly of new scholarship.

*Just how successful such a centre can be is shown by the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center. Between August 2000 and mid-June 2001 more than three million electronic copies of around 1,600 free classic titles were downloaded by users.

*The latest version of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available at http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html. If you're serious enough you can also download an Acrobat or Word version for printing (it's over 100 pages long). There are over 1,400 selected "articles, books, electronic documents, and other sources" included concerning this important topic. A great achievement from Charles W. Bailey Jr. of the University of Houston, Texas.

*An valuable new academic tool for handhelds, Ovid@Hand, will enable clinicians & researchers to request information about drugs & drug interactions, order database searches and retrieve & review the latest journal articles from any location using their Palm, Handspring or other handheld device. Synching the device with their computer will cause the Ovid@Hand software to automatically fulfill the request.

*The University of California, Los Angeles has decided to support ELO. No not the seventies band, the Electronic Literature Organisation. ELO moved to UCLA on 1 September - check out their useful website at http://www.eliterature.org. Since then ELO has announced (October 9) the winners of its 2001 Literature Awards. Londoner John Cayley and Toronto resident Caitlin Fisher won $US10,000 each and a trophy for Poetry and Fiction respectively.

*The Electronic Journal Miner, alias http://ejournal.coalliance.org is a stylish, no fuss British site where you can search for e-journals by keyword, subject or title. Browsing is available, plus you can limit your search with one click to free journals or peer-reviewed ones. (Back)

*

14. Library View

In September Pam Saunders, Project Manager eBooks at Victoria's Yarra Plenty Regional Library, released her Barrett Reid Scholarship report to the Library Board of Victoria entitled "Ebooks in Victorian Libraries; Findings from the USA". Pam visited the States on an e-book study tour in May this year, & stopped in at a broad assortment of libraries ranging from the Library of Congress to the rather more compact Oshkosh Public Library. She also visited various e-book companies including netLibrary.

Pam's recommendations included: that libraries should develop a plan to integrate eBooks into their collections over a 3 - 5 year time frame, & consider a pilot or trial approach to begin with; that they should work together wherever possible to share the cost and risk of implementing eBooks, e.g. with a Consortium approach (including to netLibrary), possibly on a State or national basis. Also, that Libraries commence the promotion of eBooks within their communities, and apply for seed funding to purchase reading devices to introduce e-books, & encourage the use of new e-book technology amongst Library staff (including PDA devices such as Palms). Read her concise & interesting report & full recommendations at: http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/infonet/ebooks/ReidPaperEbooks.doc.

*A questionnaire concerning the use of netLibrary books from Alison Depledge of Leeds University, England, was responded to by two Australian University libraries, Deakin & Central University of Queensland. Both loan from netLibrary for 24 hour periods & both now are buying the relevant MARC records for free netLibrary titles for their own catalogues. Although they have different criteria for selecting titles both have found that Computing & Economics/Business titles have been the most patronised so far.

*Publisher's War on Libraries. Many publishers are pushing hard against library rights, including the "first-sale doctrine" & the right of "fair use". Simon & Schuster has even refused to sell digital books to libraries in the present situation. Worse, Publishers Weekly reports that News Corporation president & thus HarperCollins overlord Peter Chernin has called for legislation that "guarantees publishers' control of not only the integrity of an original work, but of the extent and duration of users' access to that work, the availability of data about the work and restrictions on forwarding the work to others".

Comment: That news should ring alarm bells among librarians, who must be prepared to lobby politicians hard so that legitimate digital rights management issues are not used as an excuse for undermining the whole ability of libraries to lend, & to serve the public interest in the digital arena. There's no room for complacency, or "leaders" who are reluctant to engage, if this key area of the library future is not to be ceded to an unscrupulous corporate push.

*California State University at any rate is standing up for library rights. Evan Reader of CSU says that university systems and consortia of libraries aren't exerting enough influence over the evolving e-book industry. Cal. State has backed its criticism by getting out there & negotiating a new deal with netLibrary. In this, one copy only was purchased of nearly 1,500 e-books, & about half (the more popular ones!) can be circulated to an unlimited number of users at the same time, at the same price as the standard one-at-a-time restrictive netLibrary model.

*· The U.S. 1998 DCMA Act specifically fudged the library lending digital issue & called for a further study & report. On August 31 that study was released by the U.S. Copyright Office. The new study does call for laws to authorise an archival copy (e.g. in a library); make it clear that back-up (same system) copies are legal; & clarify the status of temporary copies made (e.g. computer caches or other transferring mechanisms). However the timid report did not recommend changes to the clauses skewed in favour of publishers against libraries & the public, by comparison with offline copyright law. Nor did it support revision of the law (section 1201) under which Dmitry Sklyarov faces a possible 25 years in jail, claiming that "the actual impact…appears to be minimal."

*· Meanwhile digital rights are now a real and present library issue, with many local libraries in the States launching pilot e-book lending programmes this year (most restrict free loans to local residents). The most ambitious is in Northern California, where a consortium of 23 library systems maintains a website offering more than 3,000 e-books. Loans are for between 24hrs and two weeks & automatically "expire" (i.e. have time-limits built into the e-text), so "overdues" are impossible.

*iBistro (http://www.infobistro.com) is a relatively new e-Library service (launched July 2000) from the U.S. SIRSI Corporation. Over 100 U.S. libraries are now using the iBistro service. It appears to be a fairly sophisticated integration of online resources, with the all the usual stuff plus resources like audio & video files, & catalogue content enrichment including "book reviews, author biographies, summaries, first chapters, tables of contents, and book jacket covers."

Users can also " personalize their library experience" by creating password-protected interest lists & suchlike, while the host Library can define which websites users will have automatic access to & customize other features. The service will probably find favour with smaller institutions which want an "all-in one" package deal for their online library services, but larger institutions may find some aspects - like an over-dependence on remote technicians - irksome. Study of the system's better features might lead to a degree of emulation however.

*And in that case they might go for a simpler catalogue content enrichment service like that provided for by "Syndetics". You can "enrich" both your existing MARC records and your new cataloguing. Worth checking out for those interested at http://www.syndetics.com/site/libraries.htm. (Back)

Update: netLibrary are in financial trouble & are searching for a "white knight" to take up equity & inject funds. Access to their books is unaffected so far.

Latest: . OCLC (the Online Computer Library Center) has made an offer to purchase netLibrary and continue its operations. OCLC is a non-profit U.S. library cooperative, networking sixteen regional American affiliates. The offer and an associated loan are subject to the approval of the Colorado District Bankruptcy Court, since netLibrary has now filed for voluntary bankruptcy. However refusal seems unlikely. The bankruptcy filing may have been triggered by a lawsuit filed by a Boston venture capital company, Parthenon Investors, a disgruntled major investor claiming skulduggery in netLibrary's financial management.

In a strange twist, the netLibrary affair is turning into an "all in the family" matter for librarians, since the biggest netLibrary creditor is not among the many publishers owed royalties. Instead a cool $US3 million turns out to be a debt to the company known colloquially in library circles as "Triple I", a.k.a. Innovative Interfaces Incorporated, supplier of automated library systems to many university libraries in Australia & around the world.

*

The Adobe -v- Sklyarov drama & its echo in the "cracking" of Microsoft Reader, like the similar problem Gemstar ran into earlier, raise yet again the vexed issue of Digital Rights Management. One question often raised is whether purchasers of e-books shouldn't have rights to deal with their property in the same way buyers of paper books can - e.g. read them however they like, & lend or even sell them. The present situation, heavily biased in favour of publishers & distributors on the grounds of understandable security issues, may not be a workable long-term solution & certainly raises serious concerns.

One possible idea is to have different prices for e-books with different levels of permission & different "qualities". Thus a date-expiring, heavily secured version could be much cheaper than an "open version"; just as a paperback on very cheap paper which won't last the distance goes for a lot less than a quality hardback.

Again, a somewhat more expensive digital copy for large libraries could allow unlimited simultaneous loans of popular titles so that multiple copies need never be purchased. As long as substantial savings occurred such libraries could then afford to buy a larger number of different e- titles, & publishers would therefore later gain on the proverbial swings what they lost on the digital roundabout.

Wouldn't it be great if consensus could speedily be reached on this issue rather than the present mess continuing to fester? But the problem is that America's DCMA Act, especially if it is imitated abroad, gives publishers too much power at present. Hopefully competition plus a vigorous fightback by consumer advocates & librarians will prevent the public good from being strangled at birth, & the age of the digital book from becoming as much an era of disenfranchisement as an advance. (Back)

*

16.Super-Briefs

* As predicted last issue, Random House has decided to appeal its defeat against a July 11 U.S. District Court decision rejecting its claim to inherently own electronic rights to past print titles. Tiny opponent e-publisher RosettaBooks is able to continue its sales meantime.

*WH Smith's online e-bookstore (see June) launched early October at http://www.WHSmith.co.uk. Thanks to partner OverDrive Inc's digital Content Reserve they're stocking "thousands" of e-titles from over 250 publishers, including most of the biggies. So far they feature titles in Microsoft Reader and Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader formats only.

*OverDrive itself, a.k.a. the XrML (eXtensible rights Markup Language) people, also announced Sept 25 a "strategic alliance" with ContentGuard Inc., to rule the DRM world or something. For your collection of interesting but useless facts, Overdrive's world headquarters is in Cleveland, Ohio but they have major European offices in Amsterdam and an eBook Technology Center in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Put down that martini & go find out what they're up to down there, James! ! *Their voodoo must have pulling power anyway, for rivals Reciprocal were feeling the pin(ch) & have laid off nearly two-thirds of their staff.

*Meanwhile it's C'est la "e" for digital content management dot.com Mibrary, notorious for awarding Microsoft a prize for e-book innovation. They ceased operations due to money problems. Contentville.com, a "mixed business" of electronic documents, eBooks, and articles, also closed, on September 28.

*Yahoo opened (early September) a site on its portal for a group of publishers to sell e-books direct to Yahoo patrons. Participating so far are major players Viacom's Simon & Schuster, Bertelsmann's Random House, Pearson's Penguin Putnam & News Corporation's HarperCollins.

*Swets Blackwell and ProQuest are cohabiting, with a reciprocal linking agreement from Proquest's databases to nearly 6,000 full-text e-journals in Swets Blackwell's netNavigator service.

*Correction: reader Chris Boyd has pointed out that " Pearson plc, despite its joint listing on the London and NY stock exchanges, is a UK-based publisher, not a U.S. publisher". Thanks Chris. By the way, Pearson's very British Penguin imprint is currently releasing 200 e-titles in both Adobe & Microsoft formats, mostly at 20% below print version prices. * (Back)

*

17.Here, There and Everywhere

*How many e-books? According to R.R. Bowker's Books in Print there are now over 46,00 full-length e-book titles for sale in their listings, which since June has included netLibrary holdings. NetLibrary now has around 34,000 copyrighted titles and nearly four thousand public domain e-books. More than two-thirds of the Bowker titles are in the fiction, literature & juvenile classifications.

Independent e-publishers list several thousand more e-books available for purchase. Then there are the free sites like Project Gutenberg (over 3,500 titles) & the Phoenix Library, not to mention those e-books available for e-loan from regular libraries and special scholarly digital collections on the Net. Although some of these titles coincide, overall there are - lots! And it's early days yet, the most important point to be made to e-book Doubting Thomases.

* Speaking of Project Gutenberg, the venerable free public domain e-text site has received a boost from the launch of Project Gutenberg Reader (http://www.pgreader.com). Basically the site hosts software which allows you to enhance the readability of your plain Gutenberg books while enjoying them online. You download them into your browser on site, & can then change the font, alter the print size, bookmark, page forward/backwards or multipage advance/back just like in a real e-reader (although slower). Search facilities within Project Gutenberg's large collection are also included. A labour of love by one Paul Mennaga, who receives this issue's special tick of merit for a public-spirited community contribution.

*23 U.S. States now have libraries lending e-readers, while many American libraries have begun lending e-books from web downloads in recent months. And in fact NetLibrary now lends to more than 1,800 U.S. libraries.

* Meanwhile Questia, which runs a subscription-based commercial online library service aimed primarily at tertiary students, has chummed up with Princeton University Press to digitize and add around 2,500 of PUP's humanities and social science titles to the Questia stable over a five year period. Questia now boasts over 50,000 online titles.

*And the Beat goes on…Orpheus Emerged is a previously unpublished work by the legendary Jack Kerouac. It dates from 1945 when Kerouac was aged 23 & first kicking around with the other famous figures of the Beat Generation. The e-book version, available for $US4.95 from http://www.LiveREADS.com, showcases the ability of e-books to provide an enhanced reader experience by including audio & video clips, hypertext links and an interactive timeline. (Back)

*

18. Frankfurt E-Book Awards

*And it's e-book award time again, with IeBAF (the International eBook Award Foundation) handing out the gongs October 10 in Frankfurt at the Old Opera House, as a Book Fair event. Indian writer Amitav Ghosh won the fiction award for his stirring novel "The Glass Palace", set in early twentieth century India under the British Raj. Steven Levy meantime took out the non-fiction prize for "Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government - Saving Privacy in the Digital Age" (but will it stay saved, Steve, especially under present circumstances?) The pair won $50,000 each.

As well, awards of $10,000 for distinguished efforts went to Eric Nisenson for a non-fiction work on the Miles Davis jazz classic Kind of Blue, and to Joyce Carol Oates for a short story collection. A technology award for the same amount was given to Thierry Brethes, CEO of MobiPocket, in recognition of that company's achievement with very popular e-reader software for smaller handhelds.

Also commended were Francois Taillandier for an interactive fiction e-book, and Salvo Press for the overall quality of their e-publishing. And Fodors, the travel guide people, won the inaugural Roxanna Frost award for the unique components of the electronic version of their New York travel guide.(Back)

*

19. E-Reader Study Findings

Miriam Schcolnik is now Director of the Language Learning Center, Division of Foreign Languages, Tel Aviv University. Recently Miriam was studying at an American university and prepared as her Ph.D. dissertation "A Study of Reading with Dedicated E-Readers". This 150 page work, based on her own survey plus a study of the literature, deals with such questions as how people actually read with e-reader devices, what they read, what effect the technology has on the manner of reading and what type of texts read best in them. The devices studied were the three Rocket devices, the Softbook, the Franklin eBookman, the Palms, and three varieties of the Pocket PC. (Strictly speaking the latter two groups are not dedicated e-readers, but do have many of their features & advantages).

Miriam found that for most people reading with a quality device is a more enjoyable experience than reading on a PC. In fact, so far people use them more for reading for pleasure than for studying or accessing information. Her study also confirmed that people aren't keen on scrolling for any length of time, & prefer paging to navigate. Ease of use, portability, light weight, capability to store many books, easiness on the eye, speed of access & lack of fuss involved compared with reading on a full-blown desktop or laptop PC are important factors in user preference.

E-reader enhancements, such as dictionary lookup features, may influence the reading process & indeed the reading concept itself (why not always check up unknown words for example, if it can be done instantly & without moving from the spot?). The abilities to adjust font size or lighting levels and to bookmark, all with the press of a button, are appreciated by users too. But on the whole what seems to happen with e-readers is that the traditional reading process is followed in the main. For example, although the devices usually allow reading in either portrait or landscape format, convertible with a touch, most people (90%) stick with the portrait format of traditional books.

When asked about desirable features, e-reader users also want to retain nearly all of the present aspects of the book as well as gain extra enhancements. So they find tables of contents (improved by being hyperlinked), headings, page numbering, illustrations and other graphics of importance, as well as completely new features like hyperlinks within a text. However they seem to be prepared to let two- page display disappear without a trace.

Where reading styles change is mainly to take advantage of variations made easy by added features such as using a hyperlinked table of contents, search functions and other links. The latter are used far more when the purpose of the reading is for information/study than for pleasure.

Some features are used less than expected. For instance many who use e-readers for studying are uncomfortable with annotating within a text. It may be that the technology is still immature in this area & that this feature is presently awkward in most if not all devices. The problem is that annotating lacks the fluidity & speed of notes on paper (the Xlibris prototype developed by Xerox overcomes this difficulty). To take up regular e-text annotation e-reader users need to be able to write freely in their own hand, rather than tap laboriously on a keyboard or take great care to write so that software can recognise their notes & transform them into fixed fonts.

Caveats for developers are any part of the e-reader experience which is too complicated, or based more on the computer metaphor than the book one. (KISS, as in Keep it simple, stupid, springs to mind here). Readers are not interested in becoming techno-freaks or in learning endless Version Xs of new menus, commands & procedures.

Our friends at Planet eBook are making Miriam's full dissertation available as a 2.2Mb .pdf file at: http://www.planetebook.com/downloads/schcolnik.pdf

Comment: the study seems to confirm why e-readers may have a good future - once they're cheap enough, people are familiar with them & the industry sorts out its current problems. Which would explain why companies like Microsoft & Adobe are very much hedging their bets in product promotion.

 

(Back)

*

20.Kidz Corner

How many e-books have been created just for kids? A helpful article in the Librarian's Ebook Newsletter Vol. 4 April 2001 gives us a recent snapshot. Gemstar had 149 titles available in their format, 40% of them classics like The Wind in the Willows (some of those classic titles can also be obtained free from Project Gutenberg.). There were 75 kids books offered in the Microsoft Reader format, while in Adobe Acrobat/Glassbook there were 84 titles listed. Peanut Press (Palm Reader) has a teen section which includes two "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" books & no less than fifty-eight Star Trek titles. Tumblebooks had only 15 titles in the Tumblereader format, but they're goodies.

The majority of all of these were priced under $US5. Other websites offer quite a few titles viewable with an ordinary web browser. Kids & teens should also check out the possibility of free downloads from libraries. NetLibrary, meantime, has 35 collections of educational books for children & youth, totalling over 800 titles.

The above is just for books in English however! Check out other language e-publisher sites for different linguistic possibilities. For example some kid's books in Dutch at: http://www.ebook.nl/default.asp?/rubriek=Boeken&sub=kinderboeken. Although Vingers in de jam needs no translation.

As a response to September 11 Time Warner's Ipicturebooks (http://www.ipicturebooks.com) are offering either free or for a $US3.99 donation to the Red Cross the e-book "A Kid's Guide to How to Stop the Violence". Ah if it were only that simple. Try anyhow, kids! (Back)

*

21.More Sites to Check Out

http://www.bob-e-books.com Here's Bobby Graham's well-organised site featured above in Oz-E Feature Stories. It's based in rural Wagga Wagga but not lacking in mainstream nous.

Then we're off on a jaunt to North Europe, beginning in Holland. Drie formaten are available (Rocket, Adobe & MS Reader) at http://www.opkamer.nl/ebooks. A Dutch golden oldie site which has been providing "literair tijdschrift voor het internet" since 1995.

From there it's Velkommen, speakers of Dansk (Danish) to the elektroniske boger at http://www.ebooks.as. Offering titles for the Ms Reader and Rocket formats, they promise you something we all crave, namely "og god laeselyst!" (a good read).

Across the border in Deutschland, there's always http://www.ebooks.at, configured for the usual Rocket, MS, Adobe & also a dark horse "kompilierter Form" called NeoBook Professional. Yah mein herren und liebe damen, ist gut.

North to Sweden! Valkommen Valkyries, & you can happily spend your krone on a smorgasbrod of digitala bocker for Palm, Pocket PC, Psion, PC & Mac, available at 30-50% off print prices. Klicka har! http://www.adlibris.se/shop.

Oops! Nearly forgot that Britain is very much part of Europe these days. One of their offerings is eBooks-UK (http://www.ebooks-uk.com). Restricted to .lit & .pdf at present, the site sells many genres of "good quality fiction, & non-fiction" - in English of course.

If Belarussian is your bent though, you could do worse than sample the wares at the Belarusian eBooks Library, which handily offers Belarusian literature in Belarusian plus 38 other languages, and literature from around fifty other lingos in Belarusian. Which covers the field exceptionally well at http://www.mylib.com/index-eng.shtml. Yes I know, it's stretching it to say that Belarus is in Northern Europe, but as noted earlier there's no tyranny of distance in cyberspace, so…

Finally we'll hurtle off to South America for a change of climate. Never mind the coffee, there's an awful lot of e-books in Brazil. And remember they speak Portuguese, not Spanish, there. Check out a sample Brazilian e-bookstore at: http://www.ebooksbrasil.com. Or indeed there's a web ring for "Comunidade de ebooks em lingua portuguesa", which you can kick off into, at for example http://br.geocities.com/mlopesebooks. (Back)

***

*Got a story? If you have an e-book story you feel is worth mentioning, please email it to brucep@acon.com.au

E-Book Pictures (view from left to right) :

 

back to top of page

You are visitor

This site last updated 23 December 2001