Beyond Print: Reading Digitally Gary J

Library Hi Tech Beyond print: reading digitally Gary J. Brown Article information: To cite this document: Gary J. Brown, (2001),"Beyond print: reading digitally", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 19 Iss 4 pp. 390 - 399 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/07378830110412456 Downloaded on: 17 July 2016, At: 08:47 (PT) References: this document contains references to 23 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 3709 times since 2006* Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: (2005),"Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 Iss 6 pp. 700-712 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632040 (2011),"Reading in 2110 – reading behavior and reading devices:a case study", The Electronic Library, Vol. 29 Iss 3 pp. 288-302 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02640471111141052 (2009),"The future of eBooks? Will print disappear? An end-user perspective", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 27 Iss 4 pp. 570-583 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/07378830911007673

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*Related content and download information correct at time of download. The primary constraints on technological change Beyond print: reading are neither technical nor economic; they are sociotechnical EDSF, p. 11). digitally It takes several generations to get past the point of depending on the old medium for a way to think Gary J. Brown about the new and to get the point of exploiting the new medium artfully in its own right O'Donnell, 1998, p. 42). Today's reading experience is not what it was for Gutenberg, Queen Victoria or even John F. The author Kennedy. As readers in the twenty-first century Gary J. Brown is Director of Library Services at Blackwell's we find ourselves reading an increasing amount Book Services, Evanston, Illinois, USA. of electronic text ± e-mails, Web pages, cellular/ E-mail: [email protected] pager messages, online catalogs and databases, e-journal articles and now e-books. Digital text Keywords on a screen is a pervasive reality in the public arena, in the office, in libraries and in the home. Electronic publishing, Reading, Software development In point of fact we embrace these developments, tolerate them, or reject those that challenge our Abstract comfort zones. Now with the commercial The development of reader devices and improvement of launch of reader devices, we are entering yet screen technology have made reading on screens less another stage in the presentation of electronic cumbersome. Our acts of reading are not univocal, as we text, which has the potential to alter our reading read in many different ways with many different goals in habits, affect the organization of our intellectual mind. Reader software can provide different levels of life, and change the venues of our reading navigation support for the manipulation of digital text, experiences. presenting capabilities for analytic reading not available in The reading devices ± Palm Pilots, Pocket the print-on-paper reading experience and compensating for PCs, eBookman, the Gemstar readers and their our lack of orientation and feeling of omnipotent dominance predecessors the Rocket e-book and Softbook ± of text. The parameters of e-text reading and the issues of along with the software readers for PCs Adobe access remain central to readers and researchers, whether e-book Reader, Microsoft Reader, even the the electronic text is designed and packaged as an ``e-book'' netLibrary proprietary reader) taken together for portable reading devices, or resides on a server for with aggregators such as netLibrary, Questia distribution to library terminals to be downloaded to desktop and eBrary have provided a developing PCs, laptops or tablet PCs. The power and functionality of environment for publishers to look again at Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) reading software ± note-taking, highlighting and indexing commercializing their print commodities in capabilities, robust open searching across databases ± are electronic format. In many instances these are ultimately linked to open access issues: interoperability, text the same publishers who had virtually standards, and digital rights management. These remain key abandoned the vehicle of CD-ROM that a questions for libraries, publishers and researchers. decade ago presented yet another alternative for the distribution of electronic text and books. Electronic access Hawkins, 2000a, b) The research register for this journal is available at What has changed today? The Web, of http://www.mcbup.com/research_registers course, is an all-engulfing reality, and through the Web some of the publisher dilemmas of The current issue and full text archive of this journal is distribution have been freed from the shackles available at of print and paper. However, irresolution and http://www.emerald-library.com/ft hesitation remain, particularly with the standardization of text formats and the release of intellectual property on the freeway of open Library Hi Tech Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . pp. 390±399 access. The standardization of digital rights # MCB University Press . ISSN 0737-8831 management remains a question not only for 390 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

publishers, but for libraries and researchers as Although the term `è-book'' may be well, with the more important long-term understood readily for marketing purposes, it strategic issue of the interoperability of systems may prove to be limiting. In the current and access to the electronic text of e-books marketplace, `è-book'' designates the electronic posing a critical concern for our growing digital version of a print book published or soon to be libraries Bide, 2001; Mooney, 2001; Neylon, published), which is downloaded for reading on 2001; Association of American Publishers, portable devices, PDAs, PCs or laptops using 2000; Open e-book Forum, n.d.) proprietary `è-book reader'' software. The In the face of these potentially conflicting largest e-book provider to date, netLibrary, has developments, libraries, publishers, aggregators chosen this term to describe its electronic and distributors are moving beyond mere versions of print books housed on the experimentation. There are obvious perceived company's servers, and made accessible to benefits to e-books and yet there remains libraries for reading online or downloading onto skepticism about the reading experience. I PCs for offline reading. would like to focus my comments in this article As the market develops and as libraries play a on the changes we as readers are experiencing, more active role in helping to broaden initial the advantages and disadvantages we register in publisher distribution models and digital rights reading books on reader devices, on PC screens, management scenarios, the generic term or Web-based presentations of digitized text. `è-book'' may not apply as well as the more useful and functionally descriptive terms `èlectronic publications'' or `èlectronic `È-books'' and digital text documents''. Libraries show every intention of negotiating licensing agreements with Throughout the past three decades there have publishers of electronic texts in order to obtain been numerous attempts to establish electronic less restrictive access to books in electronic text as the new format destined in some minds format, comparable at least to the licensed to replace the traditional print book. When in access allowed by e-journal publishers ± the early 1970s Michael Hart, founder of the downloading and printing of complete articles, Gutenberg Project, sat before his terminal open simultaneous access across a campus typing out the declaration of independence, he network. Libraries are, asking also for other undoubtedly had little foresight where that act open options such as pay per page, pay per would lead him, nor of the eventual acceptance chapter, or `òbject'' arrangements that allow for it would finally achieve. The Gutenberg project the ``chunking'' of text to support course is considered by many as the first bona fide offerings, and ``reserve room'' modes of access that can be integrated into course software

Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) attempt at creating electronic books. Alan Kay's Dynabook cannot be overlooked as an early management systems such as Blackboard or conceptual model of the e-book. In the late WebCT. These open options move away from 1980s the software company Voyager the ``book'' concept embedded in the term developed a number of electronic books for the ``e-book''. Macintosh, and around the same time Sony introduced the DiscMan, a portable CD-ROM reader and display unit, which hoped to take Reading habits advantage of the number of CD-ROM books that publishers were developing for the market. Michael Gorman and Walt Crawford have Subsequent developments, the popularity of the stated that ``the debate about the future of print Web, the text encoding initiative, and the is really not about print-on-paper versus standardization of SGML and HTML for the electronic technology. It is about reading and Web, have all provided the groundwork for the the best means to read ... We wish to current commitment publishers are making to demonstrate that print-on-paper the ``book'') digitizing their front and back lists. In spite of is the best vehicle for sustained reading and is all these efforts, as persistently as ever, print likely to remain so for the foreseeable future'' maintains its hold on us. Gorman and Crawford, 1995). The future 391 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

indeed has arrived and digital reading is forcing textbooks, scholarly monographs, novels, plays us to change our views of sustained reading of or poems. print on paper. When reading texts we employ different In practice we may limit our reading on strategies according to our goals of pleasure and screens to citations and paragraphs and by habit enjoyment, information and learning. Reading prefer print on paper for extended, longer text for information, for example, may have as periods of reading. These reading habits, an ultimate goal the formulation of ideas for an however, are being altered with the arrival of assignment, a test, a composition, an article, or reading appliances, improved screen technology merely out of curiosity to respond to a nagging and the growing number of electronic question. While reading we may analyze the text documents and e-books distributed on the carefully. We may take notes, make an outline, Web. Previously, poor screen resolution had evaluate or critique the ideas and formulate our made sustained reading tiresome and difficult, own synthesis. We recognize this close scrutiny but now with current technological as analytical reading, as opposed to casual, improvements and reader software pleasurable reading. By the same token we set enhancements, reading on screens presents a aside the goal of pleasure when we read a novel, less aggravating and more flexible reading play or poem critically in order to analyze it in experience to an increasing number of people. fulfillment of a classroom assignment, the Microsoft's ClearType[1] and Adobe's writing of a book review, critical essay or perhaps merely to relate it to our intellectual CoolType[2] with active matrix screens smooth worldview. Different acts of reading utilize out the rough edges of text and provide clarity different ways of reading. Different ways of beyond previous generations of CRT and LCD reading are supported by different methods of screens. New advances such as plastic manipulating and organizing text ± either in our electronic ink displays announced by mind, on paper or on screen. Gyricon[3] and E Ink[4], as well as the Studies during the decade of the 1990s promising development of very bright, conducted by researchers at Xerox PARC and lightweight and power-efficient screens called Microsoft have looked at how we read and how Organic Light Emitting Diodes OLED))[5], reading devices and reader software can support bring us one step closer to a paper-like reading the ultimate goals of our reading. Taking the experience. lead from Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book In discussing our reading preferences and Adler, 1940), Bill Schilit of Xerox PARC habits, it is important to distinguish our many points out that when reading a single text or different acts of reading and focus on the reading across multiple texts, we can approach different purposes for which we read a

Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) them in a casual, passive way or in a more particular text. Our preferences for reading intense, active way. ``Active reading,'' according print on paper and our habit of printing out to Schilit, ``combines reading with critical electronic text provokes a deeper analysis of thinking, learning, and decision making, how and why we read. Reading is not merely a whereas passive reading is less careful and less single, univocal act. All reading is not subsumed effortful. Active reading tends to involve not in an act which we incorrectly exemplify by just reading per se, but also writing, especially ``taking a book in hand'' and enjoying the annotating and note-taking. Passive reading, on concomitant pleasures of touch and smell. the other hand, is what we tend to do with paperback fiction'' Schilit, 1999a, b). Kenton O'Hara from the Rank Xerox A typology of reading Research Center in Cambridge, UK wrote a technical report in 1996 entitled ``Towards a Reading is not a univocal act. We read many typology of reading goals'' in which he outlined different texts in many different ways for many in detail how a text is read, the support activities different reasons ± whether print-on-paper or employed in reading a text, and why a text is e-texts ± be they newspapers, magazines, read. He elaborated six categories for how a text manuals, maps, professional journals, can be read: receptive reading, reflective 392 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

reading, skim reading, scanning, serial/non- paper-based sources Murphy et al., 2000). serial reading and single/repeated reading. Why Focusing on persuasion that assumes a text is read was discussed under the following comprehension and recall and using control categories: reading to learn; reading to self- groups, Murphy et al. note ``that students who inform; reading to search/reading to answer read the traditional paper text found it questions; reading for research; reading to significantly easier to understand than the summarize; reading for discussion; proof- computer only group ... it is likely that the reading; reading while writing from multiple students have more difficulty understanding sources; reading for text revision; reading for what they read from a computer screen'' critical review; reading to apply; reading for Murphy et al., 2000, p. 13). Yet the research problem solving and decision making; reading shows each kind of reading equally persuasive: for enjoyment O'Hara, 1996). ``results of this study suggest that the Reading for pleasure, ``ludic reading'' as Bill presentation of persuasive messages in a linear, Hill, a researcher at Microsoft, explains, computerized form is equally as persuasive as involves immersion in the text, ``getting lost'' in presenting the same message in a traditional our reading and moving with the flow of the paper form'' Murphy et al., 2000, p. 16). narration and its content. As a print specialist Although questions have been raised about with a keen awareness of the role typography this study ± specifically about the quality, control plays in fluid reading, Hill worked on the and selection of the scanned text read on ``Bookmaker electronic books project'' at computer screens ± in the final analysis we still Microsoft through the design phase of do not know conclusively and clearly the Microsoft Reader, insisting on the advantages nor the disadvantages of reading implementation of such basic principles of digital text. Likewise we have not explored, as typography as the construction of six to eight the researchers of this paper suggest, whether word lines to insure readability and the use of ``the strategies requisite for comprehending san serif fonts for clean, unobstructed text. In a traditional printed text are not the same white paper for the project, Hill elaborated a strategies required to comprehend computerized new model of the reading process relying on texts'' Murphy et al., 2000, p. 17). previous research on readability, and the new One of the key questions that haunts perspective provided by information processing, traditional readers who grew up with print on particularly the principles of optimized serial paper is the navigation issue. I characterize it pattern recognition OSPREY). From the this way: voracious readers of print on paper standpoint of presenting text on a screen, Hill enjoy their serendipitous freedom as and his team constructed what many consider omnipotent navigators. They dominate text, one of the more successful software reading

Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) eagle-like in their overview, scanning at will any systems Hill, 2001; Dillon, 1992). portion or section, leafing through pages, setting down to read at any point significant to mind and eye, randomly coursing through Software to enhance the reading footnotes and bibliographic citations. They experience spatially map the text as they browse, flipping through pages and initiating concentrated Improved text and improved screens are only reading at will from end to beginning or the first steps to building a better digital reading beginning to end. They recall the location of experience. Of course, even with improved headings, photographs or significant text ± screens there still remains the major question upper right hand page, left side middle of the about retention of what has been read on a page, two-thirds through the width of the book screen as opposed to what has been read on and bottom of the page ± and they move back paper. Many feel a disorientation when reading and forth with ease of recall through navigation extensive texts on a screen. channels that the technology of print books A preliminary study conducted by researchers have seemingly embedded topographically in at Ohio State University suggests that students their brain. With an e-book or e-text on a screen retain more information when reading from all these navigational aids are gone. Serial text 393 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

flows across the screen like an Alexandrian notes in a separate notebook, and of scroll, or single pages of fixed text on reader organizing index cards Schilit, 1999a, p. 4). screens with or without hyperlinks, force the 2) Searching and filtering. ``Filtering and reader to follow someone else's designated sorting of the annotations allow readers to paths. Where is the serendipitous power of the reorganize their information'' Schilit, self-determined and self-directed navigator/ 1999a, p. 5). reader? This loss of context leaves the print-on- ``The reader's notebook extracts clippings paper readers reluctant to flounder through of annotated text and lays them end-to-end fuzzy text on screens. in a multi-page view. Each clipping is Research developments do promise the linked to the annotated page, so the reader `òmnipotent'' reader some solutions. Although can move easily between notes and software may not be able to duplicate the documents Schilit, 1999a, p. 5). navigational flights of the omnipotent reader, it ``The reader's notebook can display can provide similar functionality and control of clippings from one document or from all the text. Initial research on analytic reading and documents and can be sorted and filtered. at least one prototype reading appliance has The system maintains a separate ink index tried to address these concerns in a so these operations are rapid even for large comprehensive way. Developers of the XLibris document collections'' Schilit, 1999a, p. 6). at Xerox PARC have designed software to assist 3) Different modes of reading. `Ànother aspect and support active reading and sharing of of reading is grasping the structure, and digital documents on tablet screens. A few computers can help by showing outlines current commercialized versions of e-book and summaries'' Schilit, 1999a, p. 7). readers have adopted some of the these ``XLibris `skimming mode' highlights features, e.g. note taking, highlighting and text phrases and sentences that are searching, in a truncated, less robust manner. characteristic of the document being In order to compensate for the lack of skimmed. ... Skimming mode uses shades orientation and the loss of pages to flip through from gray to black to reflect a statistically in a reader device, software was developed to computed term ìmportance value''' support fluid navigation about the text: Schilit, 1999a, p. 8). hyperlinked tables of contents and footnotes, searchable text, page-by-page presentation instead of scrolling text. The XLibris prototype New ways of reading? takes advantage of electronic ink technology in order to allow on-screen, handwritten note- Reader devices and reader software provide Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) taking, highlighting and the capability to venues that change the way we read. organize notes and clipped text from single and Some readers may want to rely on software to multiple documents. It also utilizes software to determine statistically the important passages of help present key ideas and facilitate skimming a text. Others will continue to prefer their own of the text. Bill Schilit outlines six general analytical skills to find the significant passages benefits which the Xlibris tablet introduces to that build full comprehension and lead to the reading: distribution; mobile information critical evaluation of a text. Certainly, the access; organizing; searching; filtering; and benefits that reader software provides for note supporting different modes of reading Schilit, taking, text clipping and facile organization in 1999a, p. 3). A brief description of three of notebook-like displays with direct links to full these innovative advantages demonstrates the context could offer improvements over a nature of these software tools: highlighter or pencil hovering above print on 1) Organizing. ``The Xlibris uses a reader's free- paper. But there will remain readers who prefer form annotations to organize reading [and] to highlight a print-on-paper text because of the ... introduces the concept of a Reader's tactile-topographical reinforcement it provides Notebook that combines the best features of them as an aid to understanding and recall the annotating directly on the page, of taking ideas thus `ìmprinted'' in their memory. 394 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

Educators often comment on the changes in 35,000 in the case of the netLibrary collection reading, study and writing habits that they as of this writing.) observe in the current generation of students who This is a powerful new tool that allows us to have grown up with Game-Boys and TV. For ``read'' books in a new way. Conduct a search today's student, the typewriter, carbon paper and for ``Berners-Lee'' in the netLibrary collection, white-out are writing tools found in a museum. and the titles of more than 123 e-books appear, Given the ubiquity of desktops and laptops, of which when opened display the multiple online public access catalogs and campus highlighted occurrences of Tim Berners-Lee networks that provide e-journals and e-books, ready for paging and consultation within the researching and writing a paper has become a context of the text. We essentially have the different exercise. The pre-computer and pre- active power to create an instant concordance xerox mode of reading a book with pen or pencil of any word or phrase in the full text of all in hand, note cards stacked alongside a book is e-books in the collection. Our omnipotent nowhere to be found. Reading the book from navigator would be forced to do quite a bit of ``cover to cover'' ± sequential reading ± likewise skimming to find all the occurrences of a word- has taken a back seat to segmental reading. gem buried in the text of 123 books, but the Readers of digital text search, scan, select, reader of electronic text can accomplish this cut, paste and create a ``personal library'' of merely by typing a simple search see related files that hold their citations and texts. Figures 1-3). This is reading that conforms in many ways to earlier sixteenth and seventeenth century readers who created their ``commonplace More than a copy of a print book books'' of passages and quotations culled from books which they mined in segmental fashion. One of the advantages of e-books and electronic Darnton's study of the history of reading and documents is their potential to evolve into more observations about the mentality of segmental than first-stage copies of print books. In the readers casts an interesting shadow from the decade of the 1980s the software company past on evolving, new habits and structures of Voyager charted an interesting course of digital reading Darnton, 2000, 1990). The innovation in electronic books utilizing implementation of integrated software tools multimedia capabilities ± video, voice and allows today's student conveniently to organize graphics in a CD-ROM format ± to explore the and index his or her ``readings''. The creation of boundaries of text and the spaces of interaction a ``commonplace book'' of citations flows as a with the reader. Current development of digital logical, natural result from digital reading. text for reading appliances, however, principally

Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) Among all the capabilities that reader devices repackages print on a screen. Nevertheless, there or search software bring to our interaction with are some interesting first steps limited not only digital text, one stands out as simple and to reading appliance software. Much of what lies powerful ± full-text indexing and searching. Let ahead can take the lead from the road traveled by us take an example of robust text searchability. the developers at Voyager, who creatively This benefit, of course, is in direct proportion to attempted to integrate text, voice and video. the number of texts indexed on a given reader The Adobe Acrobat e-book Reader Version device or the number of electronic documents 2.0 contains a ``read aloud'' button that, when available in a digital library. netLibrary's clicked, begins reading the displayed text aloud. implementation of full-text search software The synthesized, computer-generated quality of provides an example of such a tool for searching the speech, while not perfect, nevertheless the total corpus of e-books mounted on a demonstrates the use of available digital server. It is an extremely useful tool and, in my technology to move beyond a mere print on opinion, models one of the most innovative paper model. Shortly after the release of the benefits for readers of electronic text. It allows Pocket PC, Microsoft announced the licensing the reader not only to search any word within a of technology from Labryrinten Data of Sweden given electronic text, but all words in all and isSound of New Jersey, two leaders in electronic texts in the entire collection up to synchronizing digitized human speech with 395 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

Figure 1 netLibrary search screen

Figure 2 netLibrary search results Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT)

396 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

Figure 3 netLibrary online e-book reader

text. They are also involved with several groups Web site have created a new kind of `ànthology of to create open standards for accessible poetry'', a digital compendium of texts and electronic/audio books ± NISO Digital Talking voices, which greatly alters the experience of Book Standard, the Daisy Consortium's Digital reading a print-on-paper poem. Talking Book Standard and the Open e-book The integration of text and video enjoys a Forum. These developments not only point to gamut of experimentation on one hand and higher quality human speech in digital audio serious commercialized development on the but at the same time place the e-book as an other. The small, Web-based magazine Zuzu, innovative tool for education ± particularly in for example, which aims to ``present the best the teaching of reading and providing help for resources for creative people on the internet'', is Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) the blind, dyslexic or otherwise print-disabled. home for the Absinthe Project ± a collection of Audio books on tape and CDs have been hypertext and photo collages as well as three around for a while, but combining audio, video video poems that mix, audio, video and text and text is a development that is gaining wide with scenes of nature[7]. acceptance on the Web. Sites dedicated to the Where we do see more mature development humanities and poetry in particular are utilizing is in the area of e-textbooks. Companies such as the capabilities of digitized video and audio to Wizeup.com, BookOnWeb and MetaText create a broader experience of ``reading''. The integrate text and software `ùtilities'' for ``poetry.about.com'' site lists among its many student interaction with dynamic electronic links those dedicated to `àudio poetry'' and textbooks distributed over the Web and ``video poetry''[6]. Under the audio poetry integrated with professors' courseware. section, The American Academy of Poetry Listening MetaText uses animated graphs, illustrations, Booth provides a complete listing of contemporary and interactive experiments with voice and poets. With a click of the mouse we can select The video that are designed to engage student Public Garden by Robert Lowell and with a reading and learning[8]. More than 13 new second click listen to Lowell recite the poem as media e-textbooks developed by a company we read along. In essence, the developers of this called Thinkwell have won adoption in over 150 397 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

US colleges. The Thinkwell e-textbooks, Web of libraries and provide a less restrictive access and CD-ROM-based, integrate video lectures, to their collection of e-books. Lynch has audio, animation and interactive tutorial incisively presented the debate over the control exercises with the classes and lectures of the of content. One hopes, along with him, that professor[9]. ``the publishing industry will honor the Many of the major textbook publishers have importance of managing the cultural and launched e-textbook programs that, if not intellectual record, and will ensure the free and utilizing full multimedia capabilities, present transnational flow of ideas and the exchange the option of electronic text which can be and sharing of thinking among readers'' integrated with such course management Lynch, 2001). It is essential that in the software as Blackboard and WebCT. intellectual exchange of ideas on which our culture and democratic polis is founded, digital rights finds an accommodation with the digital The spector/insurance of digital rights needs of libraries and readers. management ,DRM)

Depending on which side of the fence one Conclusion stands, the issue of DRM is a positive or negative development. Publishers and The reading process, and no longer the book as distributors view it as the insurance needed to object, has become the central domain of digital distribute their properties on the Web. Some texts. E-books are providing us with a new way authors, many librarians, and possibly the to read; not necessarily a happy novelty for all, majority of researchers, not to mention those as our habits from the past often subvert the readers of fiction for pleasure, look on digital inventions that move us to the future. Reading is rights management and encryption routines as an embedded activity in our culture, almost, one overkill. Too much for too little. could say, an archetype of our psyche's inter- A broader concern revolves around the issue relation with the voices of past and present, with of legitimate open access to digital texts held or authors and thinkers of tradition and culture, as licensed by libraries. Aside from all the issues of well as with writers of popular fiction and the standardization of digital text and the digital ephemera. We read for pleasure, we read for rights to manage access to this text, the ultimate information, we read for insight. We allow our concerns are distribution from one side and minds to wander off without any critical task access from another side. On the academic side, before them, and at times we struggle with texts in order to enjoy full access to research libraries critically, dissecting them and inserting them

Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) and their growing digital collections, texts need compatibly within our realities. to be beneficent to their users. They need to The parameters of e-text reading and the allow such interactivity as but not limited to) issues of access remain central to readers and robust searching across entire collections, note researchers, whether the electronic text is taking, clipping, cutting and pasting, and in a designed and packaged as an ``e-book'' for futuristic vein, a projected capability of portable reading devices, or resides on a server ``interactive dialogue'' with the author of a text. for distribution to library terminals to be The model currently in place for electronic downloaded to desktop PCs, laptops or tablet journals has felicitously avoided locking texts to PCs. The power and functionality of reading devices or terminals. Nor does it limit the software ± note-taking, highlighting and number of characters that can be downloaded indexing capabilities, robust open searching from any given article or journal. Access is across databases ± are ultimately linked to open robust, productive and protected by license, access issues: interoperability, text standards, openly serving the scholarly interests of readers. standard generalized markup language On a pragmatic level, one hopes that SGML), extensible markup language XML), publishers of electronic texts, particularly those portable document file PDF), Open e-Book publishers which have an experience base from OEB) structure and DRM. If we pay attention published e-journals, would recognize the needs to the evolution and history of relatively recent 398 Beyond print: reading digitally Library Hi Tech Gary J. Brown Volume 19 . Number 4 . 2001 . 390±399

technologies ± radio, cinema, television, tape Project, March, available: http://www.kb.nl/coop/ recorders, and video cassette recorders ± we are nedlib Darnton, R. B1990), The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in firmly aware that each innovation has not Cultural History, Norton, New York, NY. eliminated its predecessor. Coexistence is Darnton, R. B2000), `Èxtraordinary commonplaces'', New equally the result of human habit and inherent York Review of Books, 21 December. functionality. And so we must expect that in the Dillon, A. B1992), ``Reading from paper versus screens: a evolution of e-books, digital documents and critical review of empirical literature'', Ergonomics, Vol. 35 No. 10, pp. 1297-325. reader devices, the print-on-paper book and EDSF B1997), Network, Screen and Page: The Future of paper documents will not disappear. Reading in a Digital Age, The Electronic Document Some kinds of books may no longer make Systems Foundation BEDSF), Torrance, CA, p. 11, sense to print ± as is the case with indexes, available: http://www.xplor.org/edsf/edsfinfo.html Golovchinsky, G. et al. B1999), ``From reading to retrieval: bibliographies and concordances. In these freeform ink annotations as queries'', Proceedings of examples, computer software radically changes ACM SIGIR 99, ACM Press, pp. 19-25. the functionality of print, superceding it with Gorman, M. and Crawford, W. B1995), Future Libraries: the greater functionality of powerful searching Dreams, Madness & Reality, American Library Association, Chicago, IL. and efficient access to data. Undoubtedly, new Hawkins, D. B2000a), `Èlectronic books: a major publishing areas of functionality and preference for e-text revolution'', part 1, Online 24, No. 4, July/August, will come to the fore and create new reading pp. 14-28. habits and expectations for dealing and Hawkins, D. B2000b), `Èlectronic books: a major publishing revolution'', part 2, Online 24, No. 5, September- interacting with text. These new forms of October, pp. 18-36. reading will gradually become as natural as the Hill, B. B2001), The Magic of Reading, Redmond, WA, different activities we now take for granted, Microsoft, available: http://www.microsoft.com/ such as searching an online catalog, watching a reader/includes/TheMagicofReading.lit Lynch, C. B2001), ``The battle to define the future of the book cassette video or surfing the Web. in a digital world'', First Monday, 12 June, available: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/current_issue/lynch/ index.html Notes Marshall, C.C. et al. B1999a), `Ìntroducing a digital library reading appliance into a reading group'', Proceedings of ACM Digital Libraries 99, ACM Press, pp. 77-44. 1 See: http://www.microsoft.com/reader/cleartype.asp Marshall, C.C. et al. B1999b), ``Collaborating over portable 2 See: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/ reading appliances'', Personal Technologies, Vol. 3 cooltype.html; No. 1. 3 See: http://www.parc.xerox.com/dhl/projects/gyricon/ Mooney, S. B2001), `Ìnteroperability, digital rights 4 See: http://www.eink.com/index.htm management and the emerging e-book environment'', 5 See: http://www.optics.arizona.edu/oled/ D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 7 No. 1, January. Background.htm or http://www.xrce.xerox.com/ Murphy, P.K. et al. B2000), ``Persuasion online or on paper: a Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) showroom/techno/oled.htm or http://www. new take on an old issue'', in Karen, P. et al., draft emagin.com/ paper. 6 See: http://poetry.about.com/arts/poetry Neylon, E. B2001), ``First steps in a information commerce 7 See: http://www.zuzu.com/absinthe/index.htm economy: digital rights management in the emerging 8 See: http://www.MetaText.com and http:// e-book environment'', D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 7 No. 1, www.wizeup.com January. 9 See: http://www.thinkwell.com O'Donnell, J. B1998), Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. O'Hara, K. B1996), ``Towards a typology of reading goals'', Technical Report EPC-1996-107, available http:// References and further reading www.xrce.xerox.com/publis/cam-trs/pdf/1996/epc- 1996-108.pdf Adler, M. B1940), How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Open e-book Forum Bn.d.), available: http:// Liberal Education, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. www.openebook.org. Association of American Publishers B2000), ``Digital rights Schilit, B. B1999a), ``Why e-Read? Finding opportunities in management for e-books: publisher requirements, the merger of paper and computers'', Future of Print version 1.0'', available: http://www.publishers.org/ Media Journal, available: http://www.futureprint.edu/ home/drm.pdf research.htm PDF version, p. 1-2. Bide, Mark & Associates B2001), Standards for Electronic Schilit, B. B1999b), `Às we may read: the reading appliance Publishing: An Overview, Report for the NEDLIB revolution'', IEEE Computer, Vol. 32 No. 1.

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