E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (summer reading list txt) 📖

and video. A working group was started

to develop a “services definition” interface (i.e., to allow

web-enabled systems, especially e-commerce and m-commerce

systems, to deploy DOI).

The DOI, in other words, is designed to be all-inclusive and

all-pervasive. Each DOI number is made of a prefix, specific

to a publisher, and a suffix, which could end up painlessly

assimilating the ISBN and ISSN (or any other numbering and

database) system.

Thus, a DOI can be assigned to every e-book based on its ISBN

and to every part (chapter, section, or page) of every e-book.

This flexibility could support Pay Per View models (such as

Questia’s or Fathom’s), POD (Print On Demand), and academic

“course packs”, which comprise material from many textbooks,

whether on digital media or downloadable. The DOI, in other

words, can underlie D-CMS (Digital Content Management Systems)

and Electronic Catalogue ID Management Systems.

Moreover, the DOI is a paradigm shift (though, conceptually,

it was preceded by the likes of the UPC code and the ISO’s

HyTime multimedia standard). It blurs the borders between

types of digital content. Imagine an e-novel with the video

version of the novel, the sound track, still photographs, a

tourist guide, an audio book, and other digital content

embedded in it. Each content type and each segment of each

content type can be identified and tagged separately and,

thus, sold separately - yet all under the umbrella of the same

DOI! The nightmare of DRM (digital rights management) may be

finally over.

 

But the DOI is much more than a sophisticated tagging

technology. It comes with multiple resolution (see

“Embarrassment of Riches - Part I”). In other words, as

opposed to the URL (Universal Resource Locator) - it is

generated dynamically, “on the fly”, by the user, and is not

“hard coded” into the web page. This is because the DOI

identifies content - not its location. And while the URL

resolves to a single web page - the DOI resolves to a lot more

in the form of publisher-controlled (ONIX-XML) “metadata” in a

pop-up (Javascript or other) screen. The metadata include

everything from the author’s name through the book’s title,

edition, blurbs, sample chapters, other promotional material,

links to related products, a rights and permissions profile,

e-mail contacts, and active links to retailers’ web pages.

Thus, every book-related web page becomes a full fledged book

retailing gateway. The “anchor document” (in which the DOI is

embedded) remains uncluttered. ONIX 2.0 may contain standard

metadata fields and extensions specific to e-publishing and ebooks.

This latter feature - the ability to link to the systems of

retailers, distributors, and other types of vendors - is the

“barcode” function of the DOI. Like barcode technology, it

helps to automate the supply chain, and update the inventory,

ordering, billing and invoicing, accounting, and re-ordering

databases and functions. Besides tracking content use and

distribution, the DOI allows to seamlessly integrate hitherto

disparate e-commerce technologies and facilitate

interoperability among DRM systems.

The resolution itself can take place in the client’s browser

(using a software plug-in), in a proxy server, or in a

central, dynamic server. Resolving from the client’s PC, ebook reader, or PDA has the advantage of being able to respond

to the user’s specific condition (location, time of day,

etc.). No plug-in is required when a proxy server HTTP is used

- but then the DOI becomes just another URL, embedded in the

page when it is created and not resolved when the user clicks

on it. The most user-friendly solution is, probably, for a

central server to look up values in response to a user’s

prompt and serve her with cascading menus or links.

Admittedly, in this option, the resolution tables (what DOI

links to what URL’s and to what content) is not really

dynamic. It changes only with every server update and is

static between updates. But this is a minor inconvenience. As

it is, users are likely to respond with some trepidation to

the need to install plug-ins and to the avalanche of

information their single, innocuous, mouse click generates.

The DOI Foundation has compiled this impressive list of

benefits - and beneficiaries:

“Publishers to enable cross referencing to related

information, control over metadata, viral distribution and

sales, easy access to content, sale of granular content

Consumers to increase value for time and money, and purchase

options

Distributors to facilitate sale and distribution of materials

as well as user needs

Retailers to build related materials on their sites, heighten

consumer usability and copyright protection

Conversion Houses/Wholesaler Repositories to increase access

to and use of metadata

DRM Vendors/Rights Clearing Houses to enable interoperability

and use of standards

Data Aggregators to enable compilation of primary and

secondary content and print on demand

Trade Associations facilitate dialog on social level and

attend to legal and technical perspectives pertaining to

multiple versions of electronic content

eBbook software Developers to enable management of personal

collections of eBooks including purchase receipt information

as reference for quick return to retailer

Content Management System Vendors to enable internal synching

with external usage

Syndicators to drive sales to retailers, add value to retail

online store/sales, and increase sales for publishers”

The DOI is assigned to publishers by Registration Agencies (of

which there are currently three - CrossRef and Content

Directions in the States and the aforementioned Enpia Systems

in Asia). It is already widely used to cross reference almost

5,000 periodicals with a database of 3,000,000 citations. The

price is steep - it costs a publisher $200 to get a prefix and

submit DOI’s to the registry. But as Registration Agencies

proliferate, competition is bound to slash these prices

precipitously.

 

The Fall and Fall of the P-Zine

 

By: Sam Vaknin

http://home.wuliweb.com/index.shtml

http://www.pshares.org/

 

The circulation of print magazines has declined precipitously

in the last 24 months. This dissolution of subscriber bases

has accelerated dramatically as economic recession set in. But

a diminishing wealth effect is only partly to blame. The

managements of printed periodicals - from dailies to

quarterlies - failed miserably to grasp the Internet’s

potential and potential threat. They were fooled by the lack

of convenient and cheap e-reading devices into believing that

old habits die hard. They do - but magazine reading is not

habit forming. Readers’ loyalties are fickle and shift

according to content and price. The Web offers cornucopial and

niche-targeted content - free of charge or very cheaply. This

is hard to beat and is getting harder by the day as natural

selection among dot.bombs spares only quality content

providers.

Consider Ploughshares, the Literary Journal.

It is a venerable, not for profit, print journal published by

Emerson College, now marking its 30th anniversary. It recently

inaugurated its web sibling. The project consumed three years

and $125,000 (grant from the Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds).

Every title Ploughshares has ever published was indexed (over

18,000 journal pages digitized). In all, the “website will

offer free access to over 2,750 poems and short stories from

past and current issues.”

The more than 2000 (!) authors ever published in Ploughshares

will each maintain a personal web page comprising biographical

notes, press releases, new books and events announcements and

links to other web sites. This is the Yahoo! formula. Content

generated by the authors will thus transform Ploughshares into

a leading literary portal.

 

But Ploughshares did not stop at this standard features. A

“bookshelf” will link to book reviews contributed online (and

augmented by the magazine’s own prestigious offerings). An

annotated bookstore is just a step away (though Ploughshares’

web site does not include one hitherto). The next best thing

is a rights-management application used by the journal’s

authors to grant online publishing permissions for their work

to third parties.

 

No print literary magazine can beat this one stop shop. So,

how can print publications defend themselves?

By being creative and by not conceding defeat is how.

Consider WuliWeb’s example of thinking outside the printed

box.

It is a simple online application which enables its users to

“send, save and share material from print publications”.

Participating magazines and newspapers print “WuliCodes” on

their (physical) pages and WuliWeb subscribers barcode-scan,

or manually enter them into their online “Content Manager” via

keyboard, PDA, pager, cell phone, or fixed phone (using a

PIN). The service is free (paid for by the magazine publishers

and advertisers) and, according to WuliWeb, offers these

advantages to its users:

“Once you choose to use WuliWeb’s free service, you will no

longer have to laboriously “tear and share” print articles or

ads that you want to archive or share with colleagues or

friends. You will be able to store material sourced from print

publications permanently in your own secure, electronic files,

and you can share this material instantly with any number of

people. Magazine and Newspaper Publishers will now have the

ability to distribute their online content more widely and to

offer a richer experience to their readers. Advertisers will

be able to deploy dynamic and media-rich content to

attract and convert customers, and will be able to communicate

more completely with their customers.”

Links to the shared material are stored in WuliWeb’s central

database and users gain access to them by signing up for a

(free) WuliWeb account. Thus, the user’s mailbox is

unencumbered by huge downloads. Moreover, WuliWeb allows for a

keywords-based search of articles saved.

Perhaps the only serious drawback is that WuliWeb provides its

users only with LINKS to content stored on publishers’ web

sites. It is a directory service - not a full text database.

This creates dependence. Links may get broken. Whole web sites

vanish. Magazines and their publishers go under. All the more

reason for publishers to adopt this service and make it their

own.

 

The Internet and the Library

 

By: Sam Vaknin

“In this digital age, the custodians of published works are at

the center of a global copyright controversy that casts them

as villains simply for doing their job: letting people borrow

books for free.”

(ZDNet quoted by “Publisher’s Lunch on July 13, 2001)

It is amazing that the traditional archivists of human

knowledge - the libraries - failed so spectacularly to ride

the tiger of the Internet, that epitome and apex of knowledge

creation and distribution. At first, libraries, the inertial

repositories of printed matter, were overwhelmed by the rapid

pace of technology and by the ephemeral and anarchic content

it spawned. They were reduced to providing access to dull card

catalogues and unimaginative collections of web links. The

more daring added online exhibits and digitized collections. A

typical library web site is still comprised of static

representations of the library’s physical assets and a few

quasi-interactive services.

This tendency - by both publishers and libraries - to

inadequately and inappropriately pour old wine into new

vessels is what caused the recent furor over e-books.

 

The lending of e-books to patrons appears to be a natural

extension of the classical role of libraries: physical book

lending. Libraries sought also to extend their archival

functions to e-books. But librarians failed to grasp the

essential and substantive differences between the two formats.

E-books can be easily, stealthily, and cheaply copied, for

instance. Copyright violations are a real and present danger

with e-books. Moreover, e-books are not a tangible product.

“Lending” an e-book - is tantamount to copying an e-book. In

other words, e-books are not books at all. They are software

products. Libraries have pioneered digital collections (as

they have other information technologies throughout history)

and are still the main promoters of e-publishing. But now they

are at risk of becoming piracy portals.

Solutions are, appropriately, being borrowed from the software

industry. NetLibrary has lately granted multiple user licences

to a university library system. Such licences allow for

unlimited access and are priced according to the number of the

library’s patrons, or the number of its reading devices and

terminals. Another possibility is to implement the shareware

model - a trial period followed by a purchase option or an

expiration, a-la Rosetta’s expiring e-book.