eBooks: rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated - Information Trends

Information Outlook, Feb, 2004 by Stephen Abram

If eBooks are so unsuccessful, why are there so many of them? Maybe they're actually quite different than we expected them to be ...

Some Recent News Headlines:

Barnes & Noble to discontinue e-books

Bubble Bursts for e-Books

Google to contain OCLC holdings records?

Amazon lets you search inside the book!

Amazon's Book Search Hits a Snag

Wikipedia: A Good Thing?

Trends show it's too early to close the book on digital text

There's a big difference between the public's view of eBooks (novels and popular literature) and the librarian's stock in trade (reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, directories and IT/computer technical reference eBooks. eBook formats add a great deal of value to reference materials, especially the kinds of books (programming manuals, AACR2 and the like) that only the deepest information geeks read cover to cover from their nightstand and those in which normal folk prefer to just find that useful paragraph or page.

Part of the eBook image problem was that horrid and stupid tangential path that was explored on the road through dedicated devices. It might have been a necessary developmental path, but it was never going to fly. While everything else is converging in Palms, PCs and phones, why would anyone want another device? In some places I see folks wearing the equivalent of a carpenter's tool belt to manage their devices. It's a hoot! It will make more sense when we have better global and open standards and seamless device-aware delivery. Until then, library and intranet eBook collections are a useful place for communities and businesses to get access--especially when they are integrated into OPACs and offer decent remote access to the whole community at the point of need.

eTextbooks seem to hold a little value too. Lord knows I wish I could lighten my kids' 40 -pound backpacks. For now we just buy an extra copy of the kids' main textbooks, but that's certainly not an option for every parent. Often eTextbooks are bigger and have more features than the print copy. I see that some medical and dental schools have gone whole hog for this one.

I've also found a personal use for places like Project Gutenberg's and netLibrary's classic eBooks. For essays and the like, it's a lot easier to find that biblical or Shakespearean (I'm poorly educated enough that I sometimes mix them up--grin) quote in an eBook database. It's still just reference and not reading, though! I have also shown the kids how to use an eBook to find all the symbolism in a classic--easier than reading it over and over again.

Anyway, the death of eBooks has been greatly exaggerated. I think that we're hearing the old saw that "books have to be read in the bathtub" too often. Jeezeven we hard-core library geeks don't need to be wet to read! And I think we'd prefer that our reference materials avoid that fate too.

I believe that the comparison between eBooks and print books is a silly debate. It seeks to find the one right medium rather than determining the best features of each format and allowing the market to decide. For reference books, finding the answer is far more important than the format. For recreational reading, print is far more comfortable. Comfort is a clear prerequisite for a satisfactory reading experience.

So the real question for librarians is, Where are eBooks preferable to print books, and where is print preferable? Indeed, other book formats have their place without this hand-wringing debate. Audio books are better than print books, especially when we careen down the highway. Public libraries carry copies of the same book in audio, Braille, large print, hardcover, paperback and so forth to cover a diversity of needs. Why wouldn't eBooks fit within this pantheon of formats?

I suspect that Barnes & Noble's eBook sales weren't optimal because its focus was on books that delivered entertainment and recreational reading. I also suspect its pricing didn't promote experimentation, when it so closely matched the print edition costs while offering increased barriers to success.

Are there trends in our library-type markets that mitigate in favor of eBooks? Yes.

In October 2003, OCLC and Google announced a pilot project to load OCLC WorldCat records into Google's search armor. OCLC is also the owner of netLibrary, one of the largest eBook collections. It is not a stretch to imagine the world's most popular search engine serving as the front door to so many OPACs with library location information and instant access to selected eBooks directly from the traditional catalog record.

In October 2003, Amazon announced the ability to search inside the book directly from the Amazon site. This feature covered over 120,000 books, 33 million pages. Although rights management concerns put a pretty quick kibosh on the initiative, it is still easy to see how valuable this feature could be. I'll bet it is a feature of many of our next-generation OPACs and will reappear, quickly since Google is also working on a similar project for early 2004.

In 2004 Micromedia ProQuest will launch the next generation of its eDirectories, where all directories published by MMPQ, including the Canadian Almanac & Directory (a leading Canadian directory since 1847), will be cross searchable and offer advanced features such as mailing list generation and marked records.