E-books and e-publishing - Samuel Vaknin (best historical fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
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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.
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