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 Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:211301 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Downloaded by Universite du Quebec a Montreal At 08:47 17 July 2016 (PT) Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. *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 `è-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 `è-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.

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