E-Book currents

Citation

Falk, H. (2002), "E-Book currents", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 19 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2002.23919fae.001

E-Book currents

Howard Falk

netLibrary changes

Under its new owner, OCLC, netLibrary has been making changes. Direct offerings to individual consumers have been discontinued. OCLC's charter allows service only to libraries, so netLibrary now offers e-books only through libraries. netLibrary's e-Book Reader handheld services were not well received by customers and those services are no longer being offered. As of April 1, 2002, higher prices went into effect. Libraries can still choose between an annual service fee and a longer-term prepayment scheme. The rate for an annual service fee has gone up from 9 per cent of the retail cost of each title; it is now 15 per cent. Long-term prepayment used to be called "Lifetime service fee prepayment", with a one-time fee of 50 per cent of the cost of each title; now it is known as "Prepaid ongoing access", with a one-time fee of 55 per cent of the cost of each title. Prepaid ongoing access is meant to give ownership of netLibrary e-books to libraries. However, it is a limited form of ownership since patrons access netLibrary e-books from netLibrary via the Internet and the libraries do not actually posses or control the e-book files. OCLC purportedly would like to sell licenses to libraries that would give libraries the right to possess and distribute e-books, but has not been able to get the book publishers that supply e-book materials to netLibrary to accept this idea. "Ongoing access" sounds less permanent than "lifetime service". What the new arrangement promises is that netLibrary service will continue for as long as the e-book delivery technology now in use meets the conditions of "market adoption" and "vendor support". If netLibrary should change their technology, they promise to continue their services.

Ebrary for Libraries

Libraries have become the core customers for ebrary (www.ebrary.com) , a service that provides online access over the Internet to thousands of titles in subject areas such as business, economics, classics, education, history, medicine, philosophy and political science. A recent arrangement with Penguin Classics has added literature titles and almost all of these titles can be browsed free of charge by any number of simultaneous users. For those who wish to copy or print pages of text, there is a small per-page charge, 15 to 50 cents, which libraries may absorb. Ebrary charges libraries a flat service fee, and provides libraries with custom Web sites which ebrary creates and maintains. The Web sites contain no advertising and can display library logos. Libraries also get free MARC records for ebrary titles; patrons can click on a link in the library's own catalog to access the full text of an ebrary title. With the release of the latest ebrary version, ebrarian 2.1, regional network and consortia pricing is available. Amigos Library Services, a regional network of over 750 libraries, has contracted to distribute ebrary throughout the southwest USA. The Peninsula Library System, a consortium of 34 public and community college libraries in San Mateo County, CA, has also become an ebrary subscriber.

New e-book source for libraries

Baker & Taylor has formed an eContent Distribution (ED) operation that has signed deals with numerous publishers. ED will be launched, possibly in the summer of 2002, with several thousand titles from Idea Group Publishing/IRM Press/Information Science Publishing, Indiana University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Taylor & Francis, University of Scranton, University of North Carolina Press, and Greenwood Publishing Group. Titles from smaller companies owned by these publishers will also be included. Libraries that sign up for the ED service can select and purchase the titles they want to acquire. Patrons will be able to access those titles via the library Web sites. Terms and rates for the service, characterized as a "turnkey" solution, have not yet been disclosed.

Voluntary deposit of e-publications

The British Library has set up a voluntary program for deposit of electronic texts and over 100 publishers have signed up. Thus far, more than 800 monographs and 850 journals have been archived in six legal deposit libraries. The aim of the program is to ensure that the electronic publications are preserved for posterity. The deposits are in the form of physically separate electronic media such as CD-ROMs, DVDs and magnetic disks. Terms for access to the archived materials have not yet been established, but are being actively discussed. The voluntary program is a stopgap measure, designed to prevent materials from being lost. Legislation to ensure that electronic publications are included in the national archive is being developed by the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

E-Ink moves ahead

E-Ink Corp. and its partner Royal Philips Electronics have targeted mid-2003 as the date for completing development of high-resolution electronic ink displays. Joint work between the two companies began early in 2001. Discussions with several major customers are already underway. In March 2002, a $25 million investment was received from Toppan Printing of Japan, a manufacturer of color filter arrays for flat-panel displays. Toppan will manufacture laminates for E-Ink displays and will become an E-Ink distributor in Japan.

Electronic ink is said to have better contrast than newspapers and to read easily in both dim light and full sunlight. Images can be seen clearly at any angle of viewing with no change in contrast. Fixed images can remain on the screen even after the power source is shut off. Electronic ink displays are expected to draw less than a tenth of the power used by existing display methods used in handheld devices, so portable electronic ink displays should function with smaller batteries, making them lighter and less expensive.

French e-book reading device

Cytale (www.cytale.com) is offering an e-book reader called the Cybook that is about the size of a hardback printed book, weighs about a kilogram and can hold up to 30 e-books. The reader was built by Hitachi. It uses four control buttons, has a touch-sensitive screen and a color display. Cybook offers adjustable typeface display, designed for older and visually impaired users. Most of the large French publishing houses are offering titles through Cytale. The device has an internal modem. When connected to the Internet, users can make e-book purchases from the Cytale Web site. Once a book is downloaded into the Cybook, it cannot be copied to other readers or to computers. The retail price is $800. The Cybook reader is currently available only in France, and a few hundred have been sold. So far, Cytale has raised $9 million, and is aiming for 20,000 subscribers in France. In 2003, the company plans to sell its reader in the UK and Germany.

Picture books-on-demand

Xlibris (www.xlibris.com) plans to offer a print-on-demand service for large picture books. To test its new service, Xlibris is offering a discount on its usual fees to authors selected to take part in the test. The paperback picture books will be available in an 8.5" 11" portrait format and an 8.5" 8.5" square format, with 24 to 60 pages per title.

New references online

Merriam-Webster (www.merriam-websterunabridged.com) has started offering Internet access to the unabridged version of its Third New International Dictionary with over 470,000 word entries. The company is offering users a 14-day free trial, and will charge users US$4.95 per month or US$29.95 a year for access.

A new Oxford University Press service combines over 100 dictionaries and reference titles into a searchable core collection resource (www.oxfordreference.com). So far, some 40 million words have been digitized. By 2010, Oxford plans to have 300 digitized titles with 130 million words available. Annual subscription fees for schools will cost about US$250. For libraries and other multiple-user accounts, the annual fees will vary from US$395 to about US$3,000.

These services are competing with other online references such as Xreferplus (www.xreferplus.com) that allows users to search across titles from Oxford University Press and over 20 other publishers, using five million links. Institutional customers are charged from US$1,500 to US$33,000 for this service. A more limited service (www.xrefer.com) is provided to individuals at no cost.

Early English Books Online

Access to Early English Books Online is being offered to universities and colleges throughout the UK. This collection covers 227 years of printed works in the English language from 1473 to 1700. More than 125,000 works including those by Malory, Spenser, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton and Galileo are included. The works include music, novels, scientific texts, prayer books, pamphlets, proclamations, almanacs and calendars. Subject areas range from history, English literature, religion, women's studies, music and the arts to physical science, the history of medicine, botany, astronomy, witchcraft and travel and exploration. Customers can search and access the database by author, title, keyword, date of publication, subject and type of work. Early English Books Online is available under an agreement between the Joint Information Systems Committee (www.jisc.ac.uk) and ProQuest Information and Learning (formerly University Microfilms). JISC access charges to the collection are on a sliding scale that varies from the largest universities down to the smallest colleges. (See also the New & Noteworthy section.)

New reader restriction legislation

If you think that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a bad law designed to protect copyright owners while undermining the rights of libraries and other digital information users, you will be appalled to learn that a still more restrictive law is being considered in Congress. The Senate version, introduced by Fritz Hollings, (Democrats, SC) is called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (S 2048). A similar bill, in the House of Representatives, is offered by Adam Schiff (Democrats, CA). S 2048 requires that all devices – such as computers and e-book readers – used to display copyrighted works must come with built-in, government-approved restriction measures to protect copyright owners.

The main impetus for S 2048 has come from Hollywood and the music industry. In 2002, the TV/movie/music industry contributed $3.8 million to Democrats but only 3.0 million to Republicans. The main opposition to S 2048 comes from programmers and the computer industry. Political donations in 2002 from computer/Internet industry sources totaled 4.0 million to Republicans and just 2.8 million to Democrats.

Although libraries exert no financial pressure on legislators, what political influence they have seems to be directed against S 2048. For example, Miriam Nisbet of the American Library Association (ALA) has stated that libraries should be very concerned about the bill, and Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Wisconsin, warned that S 2048 could force libraries to spend millions to maintain access to their digital collections.

Judge weighs DMCA case

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other public interest groups have asked Judge Whyte of the Federal District Court in Northern California to throw out the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a copyright law that is being used to prosecute the Russian software development firm ElcomSoft. The firm is being tried for publishing techniques capable of circumventing restrictions imposed by Adobe e-book reader software. ElcomSoft lawyers argue that DMCA is unconstitutional and that it prohibits tools that can be used for legitimate fair use purposes such as making copies for personal use or making an audible copy of an e-book for a blind person. They are seeking to have the charges dismissed.

Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), points out that the government has described the DMCA as a flat ban on circumvention technologies, regardless of whether they had legal or illegal uses, and that rules out fair use of copyrighted materials. Cohn noted that the judge showed little reaction to the arguments and that it was not known when he would make a decision on the motions.

Federal prosecutors say that violation of the DMCA law by ElcomSoft is clear. The seller of a circumvention product has no way of knowing whether the user of a software program uses it for a legitimate or illegal purpose.

More access to US Government information

The US Senate Government Affairs Committee has revised the E-Government Act of 2002, based on input from library groups and others. The changes replace verbiage describing an Online National Library concept with a section on promoting coordinated access to educational resources materials on the Internet. The bill would create an Office of Electronic Government (OEG). According to the American Library Association, this would improve public access to government information. The new OEG would be required to consult with non-governmental groups, such as libraries.

Gentler reader restrictions

Companies that have been trying to develop and sell acceptable reader restriction software have been running into difficulties. Reciprocal, Vyou.com, and Digital Goods have been shut down or sold. ContentGuard has abandoned the restriction software business. InterTrust Technologies has cut its staff almost in half. It turns out that creating software to protect copyrights without alienating users is a very difficult task. Companies that remain in the business are making serious efforts to produce software that consumers will find acceptable. For example, Alchemedia (www.alchemedia.com) offers the Mirage system that guarantees decrypted text appears only on the user's display screen, never in memory. This prevents the user from copying or printing what is viewed. Sealed Media (www.sealedmedia.com) software uses decryption keys stored on a central Internet server. This gives legitimate users the ability to access restricted material from any Internet-connected computer.

Suggestion from Skylarov

Dimitry Skylarov is a Russian programmer who was charged with violating US copyright law, then later released. He has been examining the reader restriction methods used by MightyWords, an Internet e-book distributor that recently went out of business. MightyWords allowed a user to download a purchased e-book on as many computers as the user wished. However each download had to be authorized by MightyWords. Since its closure on January 12, 2002, MightyWords no longer provides authorization and the purchasers are left with a defective product on their hands. This is only one example of the many ways that current reader restrictions on e-books hamper purchasers and inhibit legitimate e-book use. Skylarov suggests that e-book purchasers should have the ability to read their titles on any computer they choose. He believes, however, that each title should contain a built-in ID that describes the purchaser. If copies of an e-book title are illegally distributed over the Internet, the IDs could be used to locate the original purchasers and hold them responsible for copyright violation. Although Skylarov sees this as a less than foolproof copyright protection method, he believes it provides a reader-friendly solution that promotes e-books rather than making them prohibitively difficult to use.

E-book site adds restrictions

Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com) had been selling all of its e-books without burdening them with any reader restrictions. However, the site found it was unable to get permission to carry national best-seller titles whose publishers fear that their e-books will be copied and shared by readers. Now, Fictionwise has begun selling some titles in a "secure" Mobipocket format that provides the publishers with the restrictions they demand. This format can be viewed only on PalmOS, WinCE /Pocket PC and Franklin eBookman devices.

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