NIST EBOOK CONFERENCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, MD

Sept. 21-22, 1999

Note: these notes were taken by Tom Peters. They are not intended to serve as a substitute for actually attending the conference or reading the proceedings and contributed papers. My personal comments and questions are enclosed in brackets.

HIGHLIGHTS: The Open EBook (OEB) standard was officially adopted on Sept. 21, 1999. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and "immersive reading" [I don't think that means merely reading in the bath tub.] were the buzz phrases. Glassbook has abandoned its intent to create a dedicated reading device; it now presents itself as a software producer. The Rocket eBook and the SoftBook continue to be the only two devices that have made it to market. The PDF format is firmly entrenched in government and corporate records management systems. This may be a challenge for the OEB standard. Non-US prices for etexts are much lower than what US publishers are demanding. Most of the speakers seemed to agree that content is more important than technological innovation.

McCrary (NIST Info Storage and Integrated Systems Group): Over 600 attendees. Over 30 exhibitors. Open EBook Initiative group will meet on TH at 9:00 AM. Lab tours begin at 4:30 on TU. The industry now is working together on common standards for content. NIST has been working on a CD-Book project since 1997. NIST is interested in ebooks because of standards, readability and usability, and interoperability. The Info Tech Lab has been developing a Janus ebook prototype. NIST wants to develop prototypes, work on standards, and work with the industry. NIST has an electronic book data transmission project, which is trying to determine which works better, downloading over the Internet or inserting DVDs. Currency of info and download times are key issues. Security and network congestion are additional considerations. Future ebooks will be wireless, providing real-time access to newspapers, Web content, etc. NIST has developed a low-cost Braille reader to be used with dedicated reading devices. What is needed to make this industry thrive? How to ensure a wide, pervasive, standardized distribution of content? What applications do end-users want? DRM (Digital Rights Management) may be the next big issue. [A DRM standard could allow libraries to purchase content closer to the point of use.] What roles can NIST play in the development of this industry? What are the major stakeholder groups?

Kammer (Director of NIST): Encourages voluntary standards in the ebook industry. NIST is part of the Dept. of Commerce. Technical contributions are the focus. No standards are mandated--all voluntary. NIST manages the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Geschke (Adobe Systems): Co-founded Adobe in 1982. The future of the publishing industry, and what Adobe can do. Gutenberg was not successful as a businessman, but Caxton was, because he listened to his suppliers and customers. Desktop publishing (DTP) had a tremendous impact on the economics of publishing, especially the cost and turnaround time for content creation. The Internet cuts delivery costs, but not content creation costs. Adobe wants to offer the best digital solutions for electronic and inprint info transfer, worldwide. All communication is going digital. All pre-press acitivity is now digital. Digital video, cameras, and camcorders. The Web is a convenient digital distribution mechanism. Audio industry is $12 billion, but publishing is $61 billion (including business and education publishing). Obstacles to mass acceptance include available content, secure ecommerce distribution, and flexible consumption. Paper is okay for reading, but not ideal for distribution, storage, and archiving of info. Publishers want to be able to brand identify their content. A recent enhancement to the Adobe Acrobat reader software enables secure Web purchases of content. Adobe PDF Merchant handles the rights management. They displayed a prototype system for a completely online bookstore, that delivers full-image content to the end-user and end-device. With the new Acrobat Reader, you can rotate the image 90 degrees, as with the rocket ebook. The superdistribution model enables friends and colleagues to share information, with the publisher and/or copyright holders managing the access to content. Future versions of Acrobat will not be exclusively page-bound, in terms of display. they also are working on a vector graphics (SVG Scalable Vector Graphics) standard throught W3C, which revolutionize the ebook reading process. Charles Myers is the Director of Business Development at Adobe. Publishers want to protect their digital rights. They are looking for a viable business model. XML began in the 1960s, when Charlie Goldfarb advocated separating content from formatting, so that formatting can be determined on the fly. The book of the future will not be static. MS ClearType is a significant development in the readability of liquid crystal displays. [Who is going to backup and archive all of this digital content?] Everybook and Glassbook are partners with Adobe. CSS = cascading stylesheet standards. EBX =? Electronic Book Exchange, an emerging standard for distributing ebooks. The Acrobat Merchant plus Web Buy software does accommodate the library lending model, loaning content to friends, etc. Superdistribution capitalizes on future, distributed sales capabilities, so that payment is transferred only when people read/access the content.

Brass (Microsoft): The future of reading. We are embarking on a revolution that will change the world at least as much as Gutenberg did. [At this point the fire alarm went off, and the auditorium was evacuated.] He predicts that the last trade paper book will appear in 2018. Thomas Jefferson and Vannevar Bush were early predictors of ebooks. ClearType and immersive reading have appeared in the past 12 mos. Lending books is as important as selling books. We need to preserve free lending libraries. The Tablet PC may be the promised natural PC. MS Reader will improve the online reading experience. Copy protection developments have become real and realistic. Copy protection remains a major concern. Content piracy probably will come through the back door, via OCRing and keying. There is almost no defense against backdoor pirating of content--in any medium. We need to avoid another MP3 situation by fostering habits of honest purchase. We need to treat people like honest people. Brass predicts that 1 million dedicated reading devices will be sold by the 4th Q of 2001. The quality of paper is the great target to reach, compared to 300 million PCs and laptops already purchased. Electronic encyclopedias quickly replaced printed encyclopedias because the reading experience was enjoyable, because the computer benefits were tremendous, compared to the print versions, and because the e-version was a fraction of the price. If ebooks are to be successful, the cost situation has to be attractive to the consumer. By 2002, the onscreen resolution will meet the print resolution. Storage density will increase rapidly. Ebooks really are elibraries, containing lots of texts. By 2004 the tablet PC will become viable--a reading and writing slate that runs all applications. By 2005, epublishing will become a billion dollar industry. By 2006, airlines will offer in-flight e-mags. By 2008, ebook sales will overtake paperback book sales. By 2009, many authors will be self-publishing. Author coops, perhaps based on topic or genre, will emerge. Readers will subscribe to authors. By 2010, the average ebook device will hold 1 million titles and weigh less than a pound. Converting the 16 million LC books to digital format will be a charitable task undertaken by the industry. Printed books will be a fashion statement and home decorating option. By 2018, 90 percent of all books sold will be ebooks. A book is a substantial piece of writing, regardless of how it is delivered and displayed. The MS Reader looks like a printed book. The screen is very uncluttered. MS plans to offer the Reader software for free, at least in the beginning. It contains copy protection features.

Mallett (Dept. of Commerce): Gutenberg often was sued by various groups. When he published his bible, he did not own the right to any profits. The ebook industry has become more harmonious during the last 12 mos. NIST wanted to facilitate and foster harmonious movement in agreed upon directions. We now have agreements on basic technical specs. The open ebook group is to be commended. Thomas Jefferson could not live without books and reading. Most Americans currently manage to survive without ebooks. How can we help the general public see the advantages of ebooks. The braille reader is a new machine takes ebook content and translates it into braille. It is being developed at NIST. The Advanced Encryption Standard is designed to keep e-transactions safe and private for years to come. It will build confidence in ecommerce without stifling innovation and competition. Ecommerce is revolutionizing all aspects of our lives, and it is leveling the business playing field. But ecommerce still represents a very small percentage of all commerce. Limited regulation does not mean no regulation. Self-regulation needs to be encouraged. Privacy concerns are the main reasons more people do not shop on the net. Approx. two-thirds of Web sites now display their privacy policies. MS and IBM refuse to advertize on sites that do not display their privacy policies. Consumer protection is the next big challenge for ecommerce. Consumer protection is a much more complex challenge than privacy protection. For ecommerce, which jurisdiction applies, the jurisdiction of the seller, or that of the buyer? We need to protect both the copyrights of content creators and the consumer rights of the general public. NIST wants the industry to work together to fulfill the promise of ebooks and epublishing. Will the age ever arise when we cannot live without ebooks?

Open Ebook Standard: MS, NIST, SoftBook, BCL Computers, Nokia, Versaware, FX Palo Alto, Productivity Works, Project Gutenberg, Daisy Consortium, Simon & Schuster, GlassBook, Exemplary Technologies, Nuvomedia, Overdrive Systems, Brown University, RR Donnelly, Red Figure, and Global Mentor were involved in the authoring group.

Sachs (SoftBook Press): It has been four years since he first designed the softbook. There are various segments to the industry, and they use different terminology. SoftBook provides an end-to-end solutin to all facets of epublishing. They sell to enterprise companies and individuals. The SoftBook has both a modem and an Ethernet connection. They also sell content, including docs, books, mags, and newspapers. Bookmill is their software. Personal Bookmill enables the user to save a MS Word file into the open ebook file format. The SoftBook Store is their online bookstore. Industry segments all begin with content, the core of the business. Technology is not the core. They want to create an immersive reading experience. Tools for content conversion are required. Content, standards, tools, selection, aggregation, retailing, digital rights management (DRM), ecommerce, security, delivery, storage, and reading are essential components. It's difficult to differentiate the competitors from the partners. We need to develop a common terminology. Content is almost indefinable; the title count grew last year, but more is required. Users want to pay less for e-versions of content. OEB (Open EBook agreement) is a significant first step. www.oeb.org. The specifications are in OEB format. Multiple conversion tools are available, and conversion services are sprouting up all over. Conversion procedures are being automated. Exportation across formats and software is becoming more facile. Aggregation and selection activities are increasing. These companies are being driven by market demands, but all currently operate as islands, without much portability. Retailing is still in its early stages, and the prices remain high, compared to paper. Watch and follow where the eyeballs are. Ebooks blend well with paper books. Ecommerce also has advanced. People show little resistance to ecommerce. There are many ways to generate revenue beyond outright sales for ownership in perpetuity. More awareness of the need for DRM, but no DRM standards have yet emerged. The idea of superdistribution: carpet bomb the world with content, then require payment when the content is unwrapped and used. DRM will ease portability. The dedicated readers have proven to be secure, but security is a relative issue. Security requires constant vigilance. Delivery has focused on the Internet and loadable storage into the PC. Most companies are leaning toward Internet delivery. The systems are not yet cross-compatible. Users like the speed and ease of the delivery of content. There are dedicated reading devices, and software-based readers. We cannot yet predict the killer app that will make ebooks take off. The next year promises continued cooperation, more content, more standards, more tools and services, more cross-compatibility, more customers, and lower prices. Will ebooks be able to merge books on paper and books on tape? Ebooks will be able to speak. We need DRM standards and distribution standards.

Eberhard (NuvoMedia): What is an ebook? Who reads ebooks? Where are we headed? Electronic reference books have been around for approx. a decade, but they were not designed for serious, immersive reading. CD-ROMs were hailed as the new papyrus, but they didn't solve any fundamental problems for the book industry. AAP hired Global Integrity to undertake an ebook security assessment. They found flaws in the general-purpose reading devices. Ebooks now have a compelling reading experience, a secure distribution systems, and a complete system. The experience of an ebook extends beyond the image on the screen. Reading is a complete human experience--intellectual, tactile, etc. Readers of ebooks include frequent travelers, people who want immediate news, people who have tried reading on PCs, people who want large print, and people who love to read. The hardware will only get better. This is an area where technology excels. Ebook editions will be released prior to editions in other formats. Authors will write for the ebook readers and the reading experience: hypertext, etc. An ebook is more than just words on a screen; its an entire aesthetic experience. Reading on a PDA is a different experience than reading on a dedicated ebook device. An OEB upgrade for the Rocket eBook device will be available free of charge. Powells.com, B&N, and Oncampus are selling rocket editions.

Catherine Skinner (for Don Bottoms) (Librius): How to get sellers and readers together? This is like the early days of Comdex and the cable industry. Readers expect a paper book, portability, mobility, sharability, value, readibility, and access in perpetuity. Sellers expect DRM, security, integrity of the content, stability, and lots of customers. Currently we have different platforms, different hardware, wireless computing, commerce software, and rights management software. Librius wants to provde a open, integrated program for the delivery and use of content. Books2read.com is ready today to provide links to existing hardware, device mobility, and storage capabilities. The site provides sellers with security at different levels, DRM, importing in different formats, and ecommerce support. The system is still in beta test. The "my library" feature of Books2read.com is essential. It enables readers to manage the content they own. Librius is working on an open end-to-end solution that will be announced soon. They don't want to be a retail online bookstore. How does a buyer know his/her rights without reading a lengthy license agreement? They store the content at their end, so that end-users don't have to. We need to work harder to explain and understand reader expectations. The user cannot loan or resell owned content in the Librius system. The real challenge of DRM is about maintenance (Who will remember who has rights to what?), not about encryption. Librius is more interested in the distribution of content, not designing and selling dedicated reading devices. They think that PDAs are acceptable portable reading devices.

Munyan (Everybook): The EB Dedicated Reader is a double-screen reader. How can we get from the current distribution labyrinth to a quick download. Stories of slow ebook adoption have been coming out this month. Munyan argues that traditional distribution schemes no longer are workable. Everybook does not assume that print publishing will disappear. They are using PDF format. The industry risks false expectations in predicting the death of print-based publications. Everybook wants to aggregate content and sell it directly to consumers. In the new world order, the internet is the distribution avenue, and the ebook company is the retailer. Publishers want a single composition solution that enables the reflowing of content to print, Web, and other outlets. Ebook distribution is advantageous because there is direct supply from publisher to ebook retailer, and they deliver directly from ebook retailer to the consumer. [What is the role for libraries here? Intellectual access via catalog records and metadata? Reader services? Archiving?] Ebook distribution also provides easier updates to information at the page, chapter, and edition levels. Publishers will supply these updates, and consumers will subscribe to receive them. The Internet has a global reach, which provides exemptions from real-world trade restrictions and distribution costs. [How long will that last?] Everybook has a business model built around the postscript and PDF de facto standards. The EB Dedicated Reader initially is targeted for the reference industry, not for the consumer market. It has two full-page, full-color screen. The storage and communication components are removable, so that the device can be used around the world. A type II PCMCIA slot is used. The device handles all types of PDF files, regardless of the origin of the file. They see a market for the devices themselves. Publishers have focused on "relationship management" with authors and content creators, and providing "venture capital" to potential authors. They don't want to get involved in the costs to develop and maintain a Web site. The desktop PC is an inadequate online reading device and learning platform. Printing costs have been transferred to the end-users in the last decade; overall paper use has gone up. Ebook companies should concentrate on software engineering and retail selling. Customization of the end user experience will continue to be crucial. Everybook has decided not to deal in pornography and sexually explicit material, but it can be downloaded or created by the user and loaded on the two-page device.

Kelly (Am. Physical Society): What are the challenges being faced by publishers of scientific journals who are trying to publish on reading devices? Physicists use losts of mathematical symbols and formulas to convey information and knowledge. They want to put the entire content (back to 1893) on the Web. They want to link to other content providers and aggregators. They plan to migrate to the XML mark-up standard. They want to provide format options that exploit current and future technologies. Most articles are filled with non-text matter. Multimedia is an emerging requirement and expectation. The fundamental challenge is typographical. Multiple authoring tools are being used by people in this profession. GIF files are unacceptable for online delivery, because so many GIF images are required for each article, which resulted in long download times. PDF files are okay for equations, but not for advanced linking and for article content that cannot be printed. PDF is the file format they currently are using. Kinetic online information cannot be printed. They have been experimenting with the U of IL (Grainger Library) since 1994 to integrate and format this online content dynamically on browser software. They want to write once, then format in many ways. Would are migrating from a moveable type environment to a moveable paragraph environment. A reading system requires XML, intertext searching, browsing, and linking, and enables non-textual content, such a equsations, video, sound, applets, etc. ContentGuard from IBM is a type of DRM system. APS would rather have their content freely distributed; they don't worry much about digital rights management.

Moore (Maryland State Dept. of Education): How could ebooks be used in K-12 education? John Murdoch at the MD Technology Center is a leader in this area. There are many stakeholders in this fledgling ebook industry. They began negotiating with SoftBook Press. Lack of funds was a major initial obstacle. TIIAP is a Dep.t of Commerce grant program. Textbooks contain many inaccuracies, ILL is too slow, learners often are at a distance from school libraries, and the Internet has its own set of limitations and constraints. Equity of access is a critical issue. The goals of the project were to study the educational effects of ebooks, to evaluate and refine the ebook technology, and to engage in strategic planning in how to introduce ebooks into the schools. TIIAP grant awards should be announced any day now. Students will be assigned ebooks in lieu of print-based textbooks. Teachers and students will receive training in how to use the ebook device. Teachers and students will be able to upload documents that they have created. A pilot project involving 10 SoftBooks already is underway. They also wanted to purchase Rocket eBooks, but the order was rejected by the purchasing department, because they thought it was an unwise use of taxpayer dollars. Anticipated outcomes include increased student performance, homework completon rate, and circulation of library materials. Temple U. will be involved in the evaluation of the grant project. The physical usability and durability of the SoftBooks also will be assessed. SoftBook Press will provide some training for end-users. jmoore@umd5.umd.edu Several other K-12 studies of ebook adoption are just getting underway. Will people with print disabilities be included in this study?

Lysakowski (CENSA): For the scientific/engineering community, the paradigm of a print-based book is broken. We are facing a huge access and archiving challenge. Corporate publishers want to know where all subunits of documents go. Issues of personal ownership have to be addressed. Legally, only 8 1/2 by 11 printed documents are acceptable as authentic records of intellectual and lab work. A book is a record of intellectual work. Ebooks are a subset of all erecords. Authenticity is fundamental to credibility. Protecting uniqueness is a key to success. Electronic records go through a fairly predictable lifecycle. The Y2K problem is just the tip of an iceberg--electronic records management. The problems of records migration and systems integration are immense. How to prevent the loss of intellectual property, and how to facilitate the migration of content? We need to design these ebook systems for migration and portability. CENSA has endorsed PDF as an acceptable format. XML is not sufficiently mature to be trusted and used. What we really need is a portable record format. We should preserve the page metaphor as a way to convey information and knowledge, even if the "page" is compiled on the fly to incorporate a variety of data objects. [Ebooks are being designed to be used primarily as reading devices, not authoring device.] Reading is easier than authoring. The PC Tablet Computer was released in August 1999. CENSA is a global trade association. CENSA has broken down the problem into frontend (authoring) challenges and backend (records management) problems. We should try to avoid having a reading device war. The corporate and governmental users already have selected PDF as a file format. Consumers should vote for interoperability with their purchases. Version 2 of OEB should cover full multimedia support. Work with the librarians and other facilitators of knowledge transfer. We also need to work closely with collection managers.

Potash (OverDrive Systems): OverDrive focuses on open EBook processes and authoring tools. BookWorks is an open format epublishing system. What does it take today to build commercial titles for the ebook market? Define your customer population. The information market (professional, trainers, etc.) is a huge, driving market, but it is different from the general reading market. OverDrive has had success with CD-ROM, and they expect the same for DVD, as an information dissemination medium. They see the desktop PC as a viable ebook platform. How can we leverage the success of print format and branding? Should ebooks complement associated print products? Granularity enables a book to be downloaded and acquired in parts. Each component can stand on its own. BookWorks plans to have their etexts compatible with SoftBook and Rocket eBook. Should publishers engage in in-house desktop publishing (DTP), or should they use outside vendors? A variety of electronic file formats will be needed in the production cycle. Install a version control system to manage changes to the original etext.

Pooley (Books 24x7): Pooley used to be with SilverPlatter. They focus on content aggregation. We always are in pursuit of the endless frontier. Technology is the new frontier. How will technology change book publishing? Book publishers are not well-prepared for the coming changes. Librarians know how to build collections. We need to incorporate this professional knowledge into the ebook industry. Their primary clientele is the OEM market. Making complex etexts is not an easy process. They use the XML tag format to deliver content via the Web. How can we add value to various kinds of books? Adding value to technical books is fairly easy. They want to build large, personalized electronic libraries. IT professionals will spend $25 billion on training and education documentation by 2003. This service is designed for corporate IT users. This is a hosted service, not designed for downloading to a dedicated reading device. No advertising on their Web site. They rely on standard browser delivery--no plug-ins. They enable relevance searching across multiple texts, then can zero in on the most relevant sections of the more relevant texts. This is a new revenue opportunity for traditional publishing houses. They want to have the right books, not the most books. The Web site also is designed to sell personal copies of books. Because this is a hosted service, copyright is protected. Access is monitored very closely. They think that Web-based subscriptions will work. This service is not designed to replace printed books. The historical progression has gone from physical bookstores to online bookstores to general IT Web sites (e.g., c|net) to IT premium sites with branded content (e.g., books 24x7.com). They want to become involved in transactional book sales (e.g., downloadable books) and integrating with training courses and workshops. The site includes tools for intentional personalization features. This also facilitates group work. They have no plans for discounting obsolescent titles. This was designed as a personalized library. Site licenses for libraries (walk-up patrons) are being developed. The cost to translate one book into one other language is approx. $20,000. Fair use aspects have been worked into this system. If people exceed the system guidelines, the individuals are contacted. They cannot control cutting and pasting without resorting to plug-ins.

Rosenberg (Versaware): He wants to focus on revenue. They are trying to leverage textbooks into intelligent ebooks. www.versaware.com The publishing business is very diverse, with diverse clienteles and diverse needs. How long will it be before the market develops to the point where it is truly profitable? Markets and marketing are as important as technological advances. We also need to maintain customer relationships. How to maximize the text for the presentation medium (print, TV, Web, palmtop, etc.)? How to leverage your efforts and value-adding activities? We need to take a long view of market development. Go from one conversion to many markets. They want to be able to slice and dice their content. They want to develop online reference centers. Ebookcity.com will be live soon, and will bring all of these concepts together. They are working with several leading academic publishers.

Roberts (NIST) on a Rotating Wheel Braille reader for ebooks: Oliver Slattery had the breakthrough concept of a wheel-based Braille reader. 750,000 blind U.S. citizens. Accessibility to info increases independence. Low vision systems, speech-based systems (e.g., Digital Talking Book), and braille systems are the existing paths to info access. Braille is very useful for precision work. Braille devices can be expensive. Reading Braille is a dynamic, tactile process, involving a natural scanning motion. [This may be another type of human information browsing.] Design concept: rather than have the finger move over the text, have the text move under the finger. This design change means that far fewer actuators are needed, thus reducing the cost of the device. What kind of power consumption would be involved for a portable reader? Solenoids would be used to control the actuator. User control is a big issue for this prototype Braille reader. Buttons or voice activation could be used to control the device. They may follow the control structure of the Digital Talking Book. The text driver could be an ebook, a PDA, or a computer. Ebooks are a natural application for a Braille display. Can this device provide a worthwhile reading experience? What new capabilities could this design change open up? A provisional patent has been filed for the device. Each cell is refreshable and is refreshed inside the box before it enters the finger pad space.

Kerscher (DAISY) on access to info by persons with print disabilities: DAISY is a 29-library, worldwide consortium. He displayed a very interesting way of displaying and conveying information to a group--much better than a PowerPoint presentation. Dyslexia is included as a print disability. Having a print disability is a severe disadvantage in today's information society. OCRing is an option, but it is time consuming, and it is difficult to convey the structure of the text. Ebooks can and should be accessible to the print disabled. The design requirements for ebooks are the same for all readers. Webspeak software is being developed. The OEB started with the 4.0 base for HTML. All readers should be able to listen to a ebook. There is a huge market for talking books. SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) is a specification being developed by the W3C group. Currently the DAISY NISO DTD is slightly different from the OEB DTD. The next generations of both standards should converge so that we have a single standard that works for all readers. DAISY = Digital Audio-based Information SYstem. NLS initiated this NISO standard.

OHara (Toshiba) on SmartMedia memory cards: Zip drives are popular in the U.S., but not in Japan. These are small, cheap, reliable memory cards, ideal for ebooks. SmartMedia is the most popular memory card in the world, often used for mobile comuting. Currently each card holds 64MB. SmartMedia cards are used in many digital cameras. Also in musical instruments. Eight to nine million SmartMedia cards will be shipped in CY99. Ebooks represent a new market for these memory cards. Each card has a unique 24-bit ID number. The ID can be read with a hidden command. The ID could be used as a crypt key to open the text in an ebook reading device. The system protects against illegal copying of the contents. www.solidaudio.jpn.net is an Web-based audio store that is using this technology. Only a decoder and a buffer are needed to control the functioning of the card. Both Toshiba and Samsung are making these cards. The card is SDMI compliant. It uses NAND flash memory technology.

Wirth (ECCE TERRAM) on the German market for ebooks: Fixed prices in Germany for books. Publishers agree on a given price, with no discounting. The EC plans to cancel international fixed pricing. They have a central distribution system for books. Fixed prices help protect non-bestsellers, offering more variety of reading material. Specialized books are not prohibitively expensive. Grossist is the centralized wholesaler that offers 24 hr. delivery to local bookstores. Telekom and AOL dominate the German market for online information services. Ministers of culture are interested in ebooks as school books. Copacabana is a digital university press project that is producing scientific literature in PDF format. The Digibuch project is trying to focus on customers, using ecash for fiscal transfers, and offering etexts at 30 to 60 percent of the cost of the print versions.

de Sa Moreira (00h00.com) on the French perspective on online publishing: 00h00.com ("zero hour" as in the sense of a new beginning) is a French company that publishes both new and out-of-print books in electronic format. They currently have approx. 400 titles. 40 percent of the customers are in France, and 40 percent are in the U.S. PDF files are automatically prepared for individuals and sent via e-mail. The PDF version costs approx. 50 percent of the cost of the print version. A new generation of authors is learning to conceive of the intellectual works as digital books and documents. They want to complement the print-based market, not supplant it. They acquire the online publishing rights to original works and reissues. They print books by the unit, rather than in large print runs. IPN = International Printer's Network. They strive to make sure that the digital version of a book is available on the same day that the print version hits the market. The production process includes ms prep, digitization, proofreading, SGML indexing, layout, and creation of the source file. During the last 18 months, 85 percent of all copies sold have been the digital copies, and only 15 percent have been print copies. Paper is becoming a small side-service to readers. They encrypt PDF files on the fly using the purchaser's e-mail address. They plan to incorporate WebBuy and PDF Merchant capabilities in the near future. They want to evolve into a digital multi-format publishing platform. They want to enter into a partnership with Gyoza Media, based in Palo Alto CA and Paris. Delivery formats include PDF, OEB, PalmPilot, E-ink, print on demand, TK3, etc. They announced that they have reached agreement with Nuvomedia to be the first non-English language publisher to provide etexts for the Rocket eBook. It will be officially next month. They also are working with Cytale to develop etexts. Jean-Pierre Arbon is the co-founder of 00h00.com. They see the news from Adobe and Microsoft was good news. They want to capitalize on these software developments. bsm@00h00.com Only 5 million out of 60 million French citizens are connected to the Internet, primarily via work environments. The French-speaking in Quebec are much more connected and active. They have sold more than 10,000 copies to date. They are working on publishing updatable reference works (the 21st Century classroom project). Their quickest turnaround time (from receipt of ms to "published" etext) is two to three weeks. Printing on demand is a better economic system than traditional large print runs, maintenance of inventory, and bookstore outlets. Print on demand is paperback only.

Laroia (IBM) on hard disk drives in ebooks: IBM sees disk drives as a key component of future dedicated reading devices. Hard disk drives provide large amounts of storage for a low cost per MB. The IBM microdrive began shipping in 1999. RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks. The microdrive is the size of 3 Chicklets. Currently, 10 gigabits can be stored on a square inch. The storage capacity per square inch probably will double in 5-6 years. The lighter the drive, the more rugged it is. The current microdrive could hold approx. 10 fat, complex college textbooks. The larger travelstar drive can hold approx. 500,000 Web pages. Capacity will increase exponentially, while cost per MB willl continue to decline exponentially. Now it is possible for ebooks to incorporate video, audio, and complex graphics. www.ibm.com/storage contains much more info and specs about these new hard drives. The display device is the most fragile aspect of ebook readers and other portable computing devices.

Stein (Night Kitchen) on new tools for epublishing: Books can and should contain audio and sound. Stein worked with Charles Van Doren at Britannica approx. 19 years ago. How can we navigate through a large, complex datascape? He wants to expand books by increasing the author's pallette (while maintaining the reader's level of control) and by increasing the navigational powers of the reader. Ebooks could help readers become much more active. Authors should be involved throughout the content creation process. Authors should do more of the "heavy lifting" involved in creating a finished etext. People want to maintain all of the old functionality of reading a text (annotating, dog-earing, etc.) when they migrate to ebooks. TK3 is the format they use. They use "annobeams" to display annotations on the screen. Virtual sticky notes can be pasted to the text at any point. Search and find features have been incorporated. Data objects can be dragged into a separate notebook. Audio and video editors have been built into the software. Professors can write notes to their students to pay attention to particular data objects. The software includes a "breadcrumb" trail that provides a history of the individual's navigation through the data object. TK3 includes some canned, ready-to-use templates. Functionality has been constrained, but the graphic design potential has not been constrained at all. The software runs on both Macs and MS Win machines. Complex annotations are exportable to different layouts of the same inherent content. They are waiting for XML to become more robust before they begin incorporating it into the software. [This is an amazing authoring tool for multimedia etexts.] www.nightkitchen.com The beta version will be available for free beginning in October. Epublishing has not muddied the rights management waters. Could the DRM be built into the authoring tools? The software currently does not incorporate style sheets. TK3 could be adapted to PDF, but it hasn't yet been done. Will TK3 survive as a format? The etexts can be delivered via any medium (Internet, DVD, etc.). When the software is released, it will cost a few hundred dollars, plus one percent of the royalties. We need to focus on how people use books, not on how books are created and produced.

Bergquist (Nokia) on display technologies for ebooks in Japan: www.atip.or.jp/fpd contains this presentation. Ebooks in Japan probably will be text-only for the near future, because of the reading habits of the Japanese. Japanese authors still write linearly without hypermedia. Most nomadic readers are reading either novels or comic books. The Japanese Ebook Consortium has a proposal on the table to scan old books into big-mapped etexts. Hypermedia publications should be created from scratch, not tacked onto existing text-only texts. Ebook devices should have high resolution gray-scale touchscreens. At least 200 dpi resolution is needed for Japanese and Chinese characters. For an ebook reader, the power consumption of the display device is crucial. He argues that bistable displays on a plasic substrate would be better than current display technologies. Toshiba and Minolta have been experimenting with Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Displays. Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Displays are a more likely candidate for ebook reading devices. One problem with bistable displays is that greyscale images are difficult to handle. The image can be bent and the text remains legible. He concludes that ebook devices are not yet ready for multimedia documents.

Curtis (E-Rights) on rights to content for ebooks: He helps authors recover their rights to out-of-print books. Publishing is a unique, ideosyncratic culture. Publishers were the original content-providers. Technology and publishing will walk hand-in-hand into the future. Publishers thought that CD-ROM, not the Internet, would become the distribution method of choice. E-Rights is a content clearing house that also digitizes, encrypts, and converts texts. E-Reads is an online book distributor that sells texts in any online or offline format. The Web site is in beta testing, and will be OEB compliant. E-Reads wants to pick up where Amazon.com leaves off. Online original texts are the future of publishing. How can these online original texts be validated to the potential reading population? There are approx. 1 million out of print books in the U.S. alone. Figuring out who owns the rights to the book, then obtaining permission to use it, can be very complex and arduous. Tracking rights is a nasty job that someone's gotta do. Many netizens still believe that content ought to be free. The owners of content may not want to sell the content to be turned into an etext. Authors tend to see electronic rights as a separate medium reserved for authors to exploit, while publishers see electronic rights are an inherent extension of print-on-paper rights. This is a major point of contention. Everything rides on who controls the content. The average return rate for printed books is 50 percent. Publishing has become a star economy. It is difficult for new authors to get published. With epublishing, all you have is an author, reader, and server. The authorcentric alternative model to the traditional publishing model, authors could control the entire production and distribution process, and enjoy a greater monetary reward. Authors want to make a living from their writing. Content is everything, and authors are the creators of content. Sturgeon's Law: 90 percent of everything is crap. See fatbrain.com, where anything can be posted to a Web site. People pay a small fee to read this crap. What is crap, and what is worth saving? What impact will print-on-demand have on this situation?

Harlan Ellison provided the keynote address: He does not own a computer, nor does he surf the Internet. He is here to excoriate this crowd. He ran away from home when he was 13. He rode the rails. The lesson he learned: don't hang out with bad company. Don't follow the crowd. We are all a bunch of dopers, drunk on our technology. We love our technology. All we really are trying to do is make a buck. He chooses not to use the Internet to distribute his stories and books. He doesn't hate computers; he hates people. He has quit pretending to be humanistic and egalitarian. People want to communicate with other human beings, not with voice mail. Customer service is the key to everything. Drivial or impure dreaming literally rocks the future (Lawrence Durrell). We seem to believe that gadgets will carry the day. Don't separate people from the actual act of doing something. Young people seem averse to reading books, even if we put them on screens. Ebooks are just another method of delivering information. All technology has good and bad potential. Humans are the only technology still working on version 1.0. We need to protect our ability and inclination for passion and dreaming. Television has become a universal curriculum. Institutions tend to purvey a message of elitism, with everyone else being damned. Religious wars continue to wage around the planet. See the current Atlantic Monthly about getting beyond the information revolution. Cognitive science is the key to the future. Doing something that is good business may be detrimental to the rest of the species. Writers think thoughts, and they are watching the technologists very closely. The technology used to write does not matter, as long as the imagination is unleashed. The publishing industry has programmed its own extinction. He wrote TV scripts, even though he believed that TV was a real danger to the life of the mind. Don't get drunk on our toys. Gadgets are not gods. There will be repercussions. Writers using computers to write books doesn't smell right to Ellison. Most novels are overstuffed, because it's easy to write on a PC. Writing and the other arts should be hard. Art is the study of the human heart in conflict with itself. When he sits down to write, he feels like Mozart. [D.H. Lawrence said that writing is like praying.] Creating something is leaving something behind, not just moving shit around to make a buck. He is not afraid of any technology, as long as it is used smart. As a species, we have a real knack for turning something inherently good to bad, ugly purposes. Avoid becoming overwhelmed by the flavor of the month in public taste. Rock music died with Stevie Ray Vaughan. The creator of intellectual content has the primacy of ownership.

Risher (Assoc. of Am. Publishers) on ebook security assessment: Publishers bring good works from good authors to good readers. AAP's key mission is to protect the rights of its members. Ebook vendors have been promoting the security of their individual solutions. Protecting copyright also involves protecting the integrity of the work, not just preventing piracy. www.globalintegrity.com Authorized users may abuse the distribution system. Do these ebook systems have good authentication and usage control mechanisms? Unauthorized users may circumvent the system. The security assessment considered four possible attacks to security. Privacy is another concern to publishers and their customers. What will happen to all of this transactional information? Specifically, Peanut Press and Nuvomedia were the subjects of the ebook security assessment. This was a security assessment, not an audit. Online booksellers were not included in the assessment. Publishers are concerned about different levels of piracy (commercial, international, and individual). Piracy exists in all media and formats. Locks discourage basically honest people from doing dishonest things. The software industry also just recently completed an assessment of piracy. The report was released last week. Piracy rates in several Asian countries are in the 90 percent range. Etext suppliers can become certified regarding their security systems. General purpose computing devices generally are less secure than specific purpose computing devices. Publishers believe in fair use of copyrighted material, but let's pay attention to the four factors. She thinks that cutting and pasting is not covered under the legal concept of fair use. Publishers bring content to the public.

McNannay (Infinite Ink) on the ebook purchase from the customer's perspective: [I had to leave to catch my flight.]

Kawell (Glassbook) on EBX, an open ebook distribution and copyright control system: [I had to leave to catch my flight.]

Schull (Softlock) on ebooks and DRM: [I had to leave to catch my flight.]

Send feedback on the conference to raymond.kammer@nist.gov. EBook 2000 conference already is being planned.