On the eve of the introduction of a new generation of electronic readers, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosted Electronic Book ’98 in Gaithersburg, MD. Three hundred researchers, technologists, manufacturers, publishers and librarians gathered to discuss the factors necessary for success of the emerging electronic book industry. Microsoft issued an invitation to publishers and technology companies to join them in developing the Open e-Book Standard, which will allow users to read any book on any machine.

Introduction

With several companies ready to introduce hand-held devices designed for reading, marking and storing e-books, NIST hosted the first conference on the electronic book on October 8-9, 1998, at their headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Organized by Victor McCrary, Technical Manager of NIST, this workshop attracted a diverse audience of over 300 research scientists, engineers, businessmen and librarians from business, government and universities. Twenty-five speakers addressed a wide range of topics including hardware innovations, software developments, content issues, marketing aspects and industry perspectives. An overriding theme of the conference was the need for standards with emerging electronic technologies.

Part of the Department of Commerce, NIST’s mission is to stimulate the U.S. economy through the development and use of standards. Their activities include measurement and standards laboratories, partnerships with industry and the well known Malcolm Baldridge Award for Quality. Many speakers noted the need to avoid the market confusion which resulted when VHS went head to head with Betamax with incompatible technology. In contrast, CD-ROM/DVD standards have enabled rapid growth and allowed customers to purchase books with confidence, knowing they will run on any machine.

Hardware

The keynote address on the history of electronic books was delivered by Dick Brass, Vice President for Technology Development at Microsoft. He distinguished several categories of e-books based on their current availability: Amelia Earharts, such as Dynabooks which can’t be found; Che Guevaras, such as Apple Newtons which are dead; Larry Flints, such as the Sony Data Discman which is alive but wounded; and Gutenbergs, such as CD-ROM Encyclopedias, which are the survivors. He quoted Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future, comparing the e-book to a comet which comes around every few years, each time a little more evolved than before. Each of the developers and producers of hand held e-book units spoke during the conference, including Everybook, Rocket e-Book, SoftBook, and Librius. The evening reception offered a hands on opportunity for attendees to evaluate the look and feel of the products.

This generation of hand held devices for e-books offers an array of features, such as one click paging, an internal dictionary, the ability to increase the font size, tag pages and annotate passages with touch screens. Backlit screens with high resolution are ergonomic, lightweight, and the units have low power requirements.

Current Research

Future developments include two facing pages, color screens, and multimedia capabilities. New, lightweight lithium batteries provide extended performance, low cost, considered safe, and can be molded into virtually any shape. Technology currently in development by Barrett Comiskey, Principal Scientist of E Ink Corp., demonstrated progress in creating flexible (rather than rigid) sheets using inks which are electronically addressed and will provide an alternative to paper. Scientists at Fuji Xerox are working on software that supports researchers who need to mark up published documents and then search and retrieve sections of text linked back to the original publication.

Economics

Book sales in the U.S. are currently $21 billion--25% of which are textbooks and 10% of which are sold to libraries. Electronic book sales are projected at $70 billion. Although Amazon.com uses the web to sell books, they still use traditional methods of distribution and ship print editions. Publishers profits are suffering from high return rates and an electronic version of a book would eliminate current printing and distribution costs, providing a role for e-books as part of the distribution chain. Seventy percent of web sales are business to business and e-commerce functions still need to be handled by workflow and document management systems. According to a Forrestor report on projected e-commerce expenditures by 2001, $7 billion will be spent on travel, $5 billion on financial services, $2 billion on books and $1 billion on apparel. Managing these transactions are a large and growing industry with potential applications that should be considered as e-books are developed.

Applications

Both Len Kawell, President of Glassbook, Inc., and Chris Pooley, CEO of Modern Age Books, noted that librarians should be involved in the process as standards are developed. Pooley pointed out that in the last 4 years, his company has produced and sold 45 million electronic versions of trade books, hardware manuals and software guides designed to run on a PC. To be successful, he noted that the content of e-books should be able to run on both the established base of PCs and on the new handheld viewers. Jerry McFaul, President of SigCat, the standards group for the CD-ROM/DVD industry, noted that by 2000 there will be 500 million drives for CD-ROMS and DVDs. He projected applications for knowledge deployment, for both customized and commercial computer based training titles and for multimedia and virtual reality.

Julia Blixrud, Senior Program Officer at the Association of Research Libraries, noted that the 110 universities spend $200 million/year on materials and $10 million on cataloging and recording these items. Journals are breaking down into article-level units and online copies are going to need an identifier for version control. For the 2% of the population that is visually impaired, the digital format offers advantages of improved navigation and incorporation of audio with text; however, PDF files are of limited value as they are designed for visual display and printing.

Issues

The second Microsoft speaker, Steve Stone, who is Director of Electronic Book Development, acknowledged the hardware advances and noted that the challenges facing the portable e-book industry are the need for content and certain functionality, such as security for the publishers. Standards are needed for a markup language for authors, a rights certificate, and a file/transmission format.

Perspectives varied from the professional to the consumer markets. Evelyn Sasmor, Director of Online Publishing at McGraw Hill, focused concern on selecting the right format for the content, handling the costs of producing multiple versions, and insuring adequate security. Johnathan Guttenberg, Vice President of New Media at Random House, noted that "content is the most interesting part of the device," and much of the appeal comes from being able to carry multiple books. An informal survey they conducted of 6400 readers on their Web site indicated that 60% would buy an e-book and ranked subjects in order: general fiction, mystery, science fiction, romance, reference. How the e-book is introduced will also have an impact on its success. Three ways to achieve a good market position are to: 1) establish additional value beyond the print book; 2) use an introductory offer as an addiction attraction; or 3) serve a niche market.

Conclusion

The technology has advanced to support the creation of portable devices that have sufficient storage screens, can run on low power, and are ergonomic. We are seeing the introduction of "follow me" information services which are available anytime, anywhere. Interoperability is a key factor in the wide spread success of any of the products being introduced to the market. Usage will be determined by the variety of applications and the content available.