Exploiting The E-Book

Brian Kelly

UK Web Focus

UKOLN

University of Bath

UKOLN is supported by:

EmailB.Kelly@ukoln.ac.ukURLhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

AbstractThis talk will describe the portable e-Book reader by placing it in a historical context, describe the dangers of the current confusion in terminology and the importance of standards and strategic thinking.

AbstractThis talk will describe the portable e-Book reader by placing it in a historical context, describe the dangers of the current confusion in terminology and the importance of standards and strategic thinking.

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Contents

• Introduction

• Historical Perspective

• The E-Book – What Is It?

• Publishing For The E-Book

• Beyond The E-Book The Talking Book

• Conclusions

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About MeBrian Kelly:

• UK Web Focus – a JISC-funded post to advise UK Higher and Further Education communities on Web developments

• Based in UKOLN – a national focus for digital information management located at the University of Bath

• Provides advice to UK HE / FE communities on best practices for providing Web services (but no direct involvement with people with disabilities)

• Recent involvement in looking at the potential for e-books within HE / FE (with links with Library sector)

• First used a mainframe computer in 1974

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Devices

A history of mainstream computer devices

OldPaper tapePunch cardTerminalVDUsGraphics

terminalMicro (e.g. BBC,

Commodore, Sinclair)

CurrentPCMacintoshUnix / Linux

workstations and servers

EmergingE-BookWAP, GPRS, 3GDigital TVPDAsKiosksLaptop (for students)Networking technologies:

Wireless LANs / Bluetooth

Failures?X TerminalsNCs (Network

Computers)Thin Clients

FuturesWatchesWearablesElectronic ink (eink.com)…

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LessonsMarketplace

• Need to be aware of marketplace developments: PC as winner / NC as failure / Mac as niche market

• New products and apps are appearing rapidly– and are disappearing too! (dot.com collapses)

Avoidance of proprietary lock-in• Avoid being locked into a device (cf. BBC Micro

CBL applications; dongles for PC software; etc.)• Free readers aren’t enough (cf. browser plugins)• Royalty-free licences aren’t enough (cf. GIF)

Standards• Support for standards essential to:

Minimise locking dangers Allow resources to be reused

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Current Position

We’ve been here before. What is different today?• Information hungry society (multiple TV channels,

email lists, SMS messages, voice mail, …)• Pervasive networking … coming in UK (e.g. free

network access from PCs in shopping malls in Hong Kong)

• Demand from a computer literate student intake (Nintendo generation)

• Demand for universal access for all

“Where can I read my email?” - typical question for the academic at a conference. The answer is now not just the conference’s PC facility’s but laptop / PDA + mobile phone / landline / wireless LAN

“Where can I read my email?” - typical question for the academic at a conference. The answer is now not just the conference’s PC facility’s but laptop / PDA + mobile phone / landline / wireless LAN

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Benefits

Devices Purchased By Users• Pass on capital and supports costs to students!

• Laptop policy for students attempted at Warwick - but students are buying mobile phones and PDAs anyway

Mobile Access• Providing access from home / from anywhere will:

Minimise transport costs, ease congestion, etc. Minimise demand on institutional facilities Offline reading should be a good thing,

and it’s desirable to facilitate this

Universal Accessibility• Access to resources for people with a range of

disabilities

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What is An E-Book (1)

Which of the following gives the closest approximation to your view of the term “E-Book”:

• Access to book-like resources from a computer• Managed access to book-like resources,

providing Library-type facilities, such as reservation, loans, MARC records, etc.

• A hand-held device (as described 20 years ago in “HitchHiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”)

• A talking book• Something else• All of the above

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What Is An E-Book (2)An e-book can be:

• A trendy name for any resource on the Web• A resource (often large

and book-like) to which access is managed (and resource often encrypted)

• A format which describes book-like structures andcorresponding functions

• A resource designed for reading on small devices

• Name of device used to read files in e-book format

This talk focuses on the small device (and corresponding formats)This talk focuses on the small device (and corresponding formats)

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Mobile DevicesA range of different types of mobile devices are availableA range of different types of mobile devices are available

E-BookReader

E-BookReader Mobile PhoneMobile Phone

Siemenshybrid phone, MP3 player and PDA

HybridHybrid

eBookman hybrid e-book reader, MP3 player and PDA (was at Argos for £169)

Traditional E-Book reader such as Rocket cost about $249

PDAPDA

Palms PDAs are availablefrom £100-£400

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Some Personal Comments

Dedicated E-Book Reader• Heavy (large hardback) but good for sustained

reading

PDA• Usable for multiple purposes (calendaring,

note-taking, email, Web browsing,, …)

Hybrid• PDA plus MP3 music player looks attractive to

youth market

Mobile Phone• “Communications, not content, is king” as we’ve

seen from popularity of mobiles and SMS.

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Exploiting The New Devices

The Researcher• Plugs mobile device into desktop machine and

downloads W3C Web site for reading over weekend• Uses intelligent agent to find relevant resources

from e-print archives and downloads to mobile device for reading on (long) train journey

The Student• On Friday evening in student bar, a friend mentions

some useful reading resources. She takes out her mobile device and, using the Student Union’s wireless network, she downloads the resources

The Social Animal• I plan my TV and radio viewing and visits to

cinema using personalised AvantGo settings

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An Unsolicited Quote

“I'm a real fan of eBooks - particularly because they are easier to hold than a book!  I have a spinal injury and I have read more books in the last 6 months that the previous 6 years”

Unsolicited email message received by a colleague following a presentation she gave on e-Books

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Managing The New Devices

Procurement and Management of the Devices: IT services responsible for hardware procurement

and manage PC clusters, but who will lend out the devices?

Do IT services negotiate preferred deals and leave users to buy?

Procurement And Management Of The Content: Clearly a task for the library?

Publishing Your Own Content: Let’s not forget this Who defines strategy for publishing? cf. the Web – initial interest in finding content, now

in publishing

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E-Book Format WarsPDF Derivative

• Based on Adobe’s PDF format• Well-established, well-used• Proprietary, and based on appearance

rather than structureXML Derivative

• Based on XML• XML is now well-established• Open standards, and, being based based on

document structure, supports re-purposing“My Proprietary Format”

• Other companies muscling in, and making an attractive offer to convert your documents to their locked format

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Proprietary FormatsWarnings:• Dangers of

proprietary formats

• Difficulties in reuse of resources

• Difficulties in managing browser plugins

http://www.tboook.com/faq3.shtml

How does Davtel's proposed e-book solution work?The publisher sends the book in any electronic format to a 3rd party storage company, where it will be translated to our format free of charge.

How does Davtel's proposed e-book solution work?The publisher sends the book in any electronic format to a 3rd party storage company, where it will be translated to our format free of charge.

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Peace In Our Time?

There has been:• Recognition of the

dangers of format wars• Agreement between the

two main camps• Adoption of XML :-)• See OeB (Open eBook

Forum) Web site

<http://www.openebook.org/><http://www.openebook.org/>

Note also AAP ‘standards’ work in rights management, metadata and numbering –see <http://www.publishers.org/home/ebookstudy.htm>

Note also AAP ‘standards’ work in rights management, metadata and numbering –see <http://www.publishers.org/home/ebookstudy.htm>

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Unresolved Issues

Standards issues still be resolved include:• Digital Rights Management (DRM)

The book publishing world is aware of the difficulties that music publishers found themselves in with applications such as NapsterEBX is a proposed DRM standard

• Cataloguing InformationONIX (ONline Information eXchange) is a proposed standard for sharing catalogue information between publishers and libraries

• …

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Creating An E-Book

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ViewingHere is what the the resource looks like using their viewing software

E-ditorialThis file was created using the E-ditorial software.

What is an e-book?“A simple explanation would be to say that an e-book is a self-running computer program - an executable file.”

i.e. this is a proprietary format!

E-ditorialThis file was created using the E-ditorial software.

What is an e-book?“A simple explanation would be to say that an e-book is a self-running computer program - an executable file.”

i.e. this is a proprietary format!

See <http://www.e-ditorial.com/>.See <http://www.e-ditorial.com/>.

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Another Creation Tool

Drag and drop a Web resourceDrag and drop a Web resource

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A Better Way

Is this ease of creation desirable:• It’s easy to create a HTML page• It’s easy to update Web pages to HTML 4/XHTML• It’s easy to create a PDF version• It’s easy to create a WAP site• It’s easy to make use of Flash • …

Is this true?

If you have a large Web site to maintain and wish to support multiple devices (some which may not take off) you will have to use an automated approach to content management

If you have a large Web site to maintain and wish to support multiple devices (some which may not take off) you will have to use an automated approach to content management

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Resource Reuse

You should store your resources in a neutral, richly-structured format (ideally XML)

XML Database XHTML

WML

E-book format

Print

PDF

Specialist formats

B2B formats

Local script /CMS /

XSLT transformation

Can you think of any valid reasons for storing resources in a

proprietary format, with limited scope for reuse?

Are:• To provide encryption & security• To outsource the digitisation• To get fancy bells and whistles

good enough reasons?

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PDAs are becoming more advanced e.g. consider the Franklin E-bookman:

• Advertisement: “Listen to a song, Schedule a Meeting, Listen to a Book, Take a Note”

• It provides audio facilities• Subscription options ($13 / month

in US) for Audible books (see <http://www.audible.com/>):

“over 12,000 audiobooks from that ranges from bestsellers to radio programs to The Wall Street Journal”

• Cost $150 (at Amazon.com)• See <http://www.franklin.com/eBookMan/>

Beyond The E-Book

Note: before buying one read the reviews!Note: before buying one read the reviews!

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E-Books and Talking BooksWe are seeing convergence with other devices. For example consider the Rio consumer device:

• “The Rio 800 comes with 64 MB of memory, enough for about an hour of MP3 music. It can also accommodate Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, which can stretch the playing time out to nearly two hours ... It plays Audible formats 2, 3, and 4 and it holds up to 20.5 hours of programming.”

• Cost $225 (at Amazon.com)• Subscription options for Audible books (via

Amazon.com – but not Amazon.co.uk)

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Digital Talking Books

New Talking Book devices:• Digital devices aimed at visually impaired• Use an XML DTD• Standards work coordinated by the Daisy

Consortium• See <http://www.daisy.org/>• The proposed national standard for the

Digital Talking Book (Z39.86-200x) is out for ballot – see <http://www.niso.org/>

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… and Voice Browsers

Another mobile device is the Voice Browser:• Use your mobile phone to interact with voice-

enabled Web services• Work being coordinated by W3C (see

<http://www.w3.org/Voice/>)• Current status of work uncertain due to concerns

over patent claims

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Putting It All Together

W3C’s SMIL:• Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language• W3C’s open standard for integrating streaming

audio and video with images, text, etc.• Potential accessibility benefits• See <http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/>

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An Example

An example of a digital talking book application can be seen by installing an application such as LpPlayer.

Although this runs on a PC, Microsoft (for example) have stated their PocketPC device will support the standard.

LpPlayer from <http://www.labyrinten.se/english/lpplayer.html>

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Conclusions

To conclude:• There are many new consumer devices arriving

which appear to have potential for general use• Will also have benefits for people with disabilities • Inevitably some devices and formats will fail to

gain acceptance (remember BetaMax!)• Avoid proprietary lock-in:

Dangerous if you choose a failure (Betamax)Dangerous if you choose a winner (Microsoft)

• Management of access to e-books is important• Creation of e-book resources also important• There will be new devices – which makes

standards and interoperability even more important