E-Book currents

Citation

Falk, H. (2002), "E-Book currents", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 19 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2002.23919iae.001

E-Book currents

Howard Falk

Twentieth century e-books for library patrons

RosettaBooks is now offering libraries access to a 100-e-book collection of twentieth century works by popular authors like Kurt Vonnegut and William Styron. For an annual fee of $200 to $1,000, libraries can offer their patrons unlimited access to the e-book files. There is no limit to the number of patrons that can simultaneously access a given title.

The rights to publish these e-book editions were obtained by Rosetta-Books directly from the book authors. In a losing legal battle, Random House has challenged these rights. Random House claims to own copyrights on e-books of some of these titles, since it holds contracts from authors for publication of printed editions. Not a valid challenge, according to a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit US Court of Appeals which unanimously upheld an earlier decision rejecting Random House's request for an injunction against RosettaBooks. However, Random House spokespeople have vowed to continue their lawsuit.

There are no legal restrictions on the ability of RosettaBooks to make their offer to libraries, nor are there any legal restrictions to prevent libraries from accepting this offer. The director for information technology policy at the American Library Association, Frederick W. Weingarten, believes that many libraries will accept the offer and will not be concerned about offending publishers.

Opening access to e-books

A major complaint with netLibrary has been that it allows only one user at a time to access an e-book in a library's collection. This arrangement is designed to cater to publishers' desires to restrict access to titles for which they hold the copyrights. However, even before netLibrary went bankrupt and was acquired by OCLC, the one user at a time rule was not sacrosanct. In 2001 the California State University System purchased access to 1,500 netLibrary titles under a different arrangement. With no increase in cost, half of the titles could be accessed simultaneously by an unlimited number of library users. Cal State officials felt that libraries have not been exerting enough influence on the e-book industry. Instead of passively accepting what netLibrary offered, they negotiated a better deal for their 23 campuses and 370,000 students. Now, under OCLC ownership, netLibrary is running trials of a new arrangement that would give libraries the right to have multiple users access titles.

Growing e-book market

The number of e-books being sold, and revenues from e-book sales, continue to increase, according to the Open e-book Forum, a trade and standards organization for the e-book industry. Reports from Open e-book Forum members revealed the following facts: Random House Inc.'s e-book revenues doubled in 2001. During the latest quarter ending in March, revenues were the highest since the company began selling e-books in 1998. The HarperCollins e-book imprint, PerfectBound, sold more e-books in the first five months of 2002 than in all of 2001. Palm Digital Media reports that nearly 180,000 e-books were sold in 2001, an increase of more than 40 percent from 2000, and the company is gaining more than 1,000 new e-book customers a week. In 2002, McGraw-Hill Professional e-book sales are up 55 percent over the same period last year. Simon & Schuster has seen double-digit growth in e-book sales from the first half of 2001 to the first half of 2002.

In addition, over 5 million copies of Microsoft Reader have been distributed for use on desktop, notebook and PocketPC systems, and average monthly downloads of Adobe Acrobat e-book Reader have increased by approximately 70 percent from 2001 to 2002. Open e-book Forum members that contributed data include Adobe Systems Inc., AOL Time Warner Book Group, HarperCollins, Microsoft Corporation, OverDrive, Random House Inc., Simon & Schuster, Palm Digital Media and McGraw-Hill.

Libraries buy more electronic serials

After tracking expenditures for electronic materials by research libraries, ARL (The Association of Research Libraries) learned that their members spent an average of 16.5 percent of their 2000-2001 budgets on these materials, and that these expenditures have increased nearly fivefold since 1992-1993. Almost all of these funds paid for electronic serials and subscription services; during the 1992-2001 period, the total spent on these items increased from $11 million to $117 million.

Local history e-documents

The McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, is one of many local libraries that are making their unique historical documents available online on the Web. In the first half of 2002, a rare Wood County history book, published in the 1920s, was accessed 150 times, a historic collection of photographs was viewed 75 times, and users viewed a nineteenth century city directory 50 times.

Libraries that allow shelf access to documents such as these risk physical destruction of printed versions that are often available nowhere else in the world. Online display of these materials allows the originals to be preserved while providing access to distant as well as local users. A copy of the nineteenth century directory was lent to the Library by the South Wood County Historical Corporation Museum, to allow it to be scanned, so the Library could place page images on its Web site (http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/mcm/local/local_history.html). Grants from the Mead Witter Foundation and the Federal Library Services & Technology Act paid for much of the work involved in creating the online versions of the documents.

Historical materials available on the McMillan Library Web site include: photos from the 1920s and 1930s, village of Vesper photos, a 1923 Wood County history book, city directories from 1892, 1905-1906, 1911-1912, 1913-1914 and 1921, lists of Wood County soldiers and sailors from 1885 and 1895, Wood County maps from 1895 and 1928, names of Howe High School graduates from 1875-1903, and many historical articles, pamphlets and books.

ACLU sues to overturn copyright law

The American Civil Liberties Union has asked a Federal judge to rule that the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) interferes with the ability of computer researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of Internet filtering software. The lawsuit is an outgrowth of work by a programmer who has been studying encrypted lists used in Internet blocking software. To evaluate these copyrighted lists, it is necessary to gain access to them, but the companies that sell blocking software refuse such access. The DMCA makes circumvention of copyright protection a crime. This case is of interest to those involved in making and using e-books because it is this circumvention provision that allows publishers to legally control the use of e-books while ignoring fair use rights of readers.

Flaws in Adobe Library software

A report issued by the Russian software firm ElcomSoft claims that Adobe e-book Library software contains vulnerabilities that allow some of its functions to be bypassed. The Adobe software is designed to allow libraries to control the use of e-books they lend by limiting the number of e-book copies that can be borrowed from the library and the period of time during which a borrowed e-book can be used. ElcomSoft maintains that these limitations can be defeated and provides information on how to fix the software flaws. Adobe would not discuss what responsive measures it would take, but noted that no software is 100 percent secure from determined hackers. ElcomSoft currently faces a trial for violation of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). The trial stemmed from a complaint originated by Adobe.

Chapter-A-Day by E-mail

Over 3,000 library branches have become contact outlets for an Internet-based service that offers users short segments of contemporary titles by e-mail. Users sign up for the service by entering their first names and e-mail addresses at the Web site of a participating library or at the Chapter-A-Day Web site (http://www. chapteraday.com). They choose the title they want to read and, in return, they get a daily segment of the selected title by e-mail. After several days a user will have read a couple of chapters. To continue to read the book, the user has to buy a copy, or try to borrow one from a local public library. With this service acting as an inducement, Chapter-A-Day sells thousands of printed copies of titles each month.

Many e-book Web sites display sample chapters, or offer sample downloads to users as inducements to buy titles. The novel feature of Chapter-A-Day is that they dole out short excerpts that can each be read in five minutes. The excerpts arrive daily to users who look at their e-mail regularly and that seems to get them hooked on the books. Publishers who were initially skeptical about providing free excerpts learned quickly that this technique works, and results in increased book sales.

Syngress technology e-books

Syngress Publishing offers titles on subjects ranging from computer security to robot toys. Almost all of its titles are offered in PDF format. The company publishes about 36 books a year and has a back-list of nearly 60 titles. It has been selling e-books through its own Web site (www.syngress.com), and its e-book sales have doubled over the past 12 months. Now, Syngress has reached an agreement to sell digital editions of its print titles through the Amazon.com e-book store.

Publishers get titles from the Web

In the past few months, major book publishers have snapped up dozens of e-book titles that were being sold by authors on their own Web sites, and have launched these titles in traditional printed format. Self-publishing used to be a reason for rejection of authors by established publishing houses. Now self-publishing seems to be a royal road to acceptance by conventional publishers. Self-published authors are getting substantial advances and full page ads in respected publications like The New York Times Book Review. Titles that are being snapped up by publishers like St Martin's, Pocket Books, and Simon & Schuster, include works of science fiction, romance, erotica, historical fiction, African-American fiction and non-fiction. There seems to be little interest, however, in literary fiction.

Low cost PDF files

A company called FinePrint Software (www.fineprint.com) offers a program called pdfFactory Pro, designed to convert the output from virtually any Windows application into a PDF file. The program sells for substantially less than the Acrobat software from Adobe that performs similar functions. Vendors and authors who wish to create PDF files for e-book titles will be interested in the ability of pdfFactory Pro to combine multiple chapter-files into a single PDF file, and also to handle bookmarks and place restrictions on copying or printing material from the PDF files.

Palm Reader for desktop or handheld

New versions of Palm Reader software allow users to purchase, download and read e-books while moving easily between desktops, note-books and handhelds. For example, a user could start reading an e-book on a Mac or PC desktop computer, then finish it on a Palm handheld device. Palm Reader for Desktops automatically resizes the e-book for a larger screen and reflows the text. It offers many of the same features available with the handheld version, allowing customers to bookmark pages, add notes, and change fonts and type sizes. There are also new features such as the ability to choose from a variety of backgrounds.

A Palm Reader digital rights management system protects against unauthorized distribution of titles. Using the Palm e-book Studio authoring tool, users can create e-books from scratch or cut and paste information from other applications, such as Microsoft Word, or import files in Rich Text Format (RTF) or HTML format. Users can download the versions of Palm Reader they need from www.palmdigitalmedia.com

Electronic school-bags in Taiwan

The Taiwan Computer Association is now promoting development of electronic school-bags. These are portable PCs, or tablet PCs, with built-in wireless communications. A model with a 10.4-inch display screen weighs about one kilogram. The devices are designed to store and display textbooks, and teachers will be able to use them as electronic white-board displays for lecture materials, providing homework assignments and conducting tests. The Association believes that, with wireless Internet access, students can greatly enrich their information sources. Their prediction is that electronic school-bags will not only gradually replace traditional printed books, which are very heavy for school-age children, but also provide Taiwanese students with a rich, multi-dimensional and online study environment.

WHSmith Offers Palm e-books

WHSmith Online, (http://e-books.whsmith.co.uk), a division of WHSmith plc, the largest book and magazine retailer in the UK, announced that its e-Bookstore is now offering e-books in Palm Reader format. More than 4,000 Palm e-book titles are available for immediate purchase and downloading. The titles are from UK and US publishers including HarperCollins, Random House, Simon & Schuster, McGraw-Hill, St Martin's Press, and Time Warner.

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