Electronic books and libraries of the future
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045143 |
| Pages | 139-149 |
| Published date | 01 March 1992 |
| Date | 01 March 1992 |
| Author | Philip Barker |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Article
Electronic books and
libraries of
the
future
Philip Barker
Interactive Systems Research Group, School
of
Computing and Mathematics, The University
of
Teesside,
Cleveland,
UK
Abstract:
Since
their
inception in the early 1980s
electronic
books have
grown substantially
in popularity,
mainly
due to
their
usefulness in distributing large volumes
of
interactive multimedia information in
the form of
text,
pictures and
sound.
This paper
describes the basic nature of
electronic
books and the
philosophy underlying their
use.
A
basic taxonomy
of
electronic books is
then presented and a
description
is
given
of
the various techniques
involved in
their
design
and
fabrication.
The
paper concludes with a
description
of
some application case studies
and
an outline
of some possible future
directions
of development.
1.
Introduction
Virtually
everyone in a modern society is
familiar with books.
Young children begin to explore simple picture books from
very early
ages
(about 12-18
months),
thereby
learning
more
about the world they live in and the fantasy worlds that we
create
for
them.
Subsequently,
they learn to
select the particu-
lar books that they wish to look at and acquire the skills
needed to turn the pages of
the
book and identify the objects
that are
portrayed upon
these
pages.
Later,
as
they
grow
older
and their skills develop further, children move from picture
books to illustrated story books, and subsequently to novels
and other forms of
the
printed word.
It
is
easy
to see
that
books
form
an
important part of human
culture.
They are
used
to
support
a wide range
of human acti-
vities such as education, entertainment, business and re-
search. Indeed, for many professions (such as
law,
engineer-
ing and science) books form the basic mechanism by which
information is stored and made available to others who may
wish
to use
it.
In functional
terms,
the purpose of books is thus twofold.
First, they can act as repositories for information which we
wish to
keep
—
possibly,
for
ever.
Second, they can act as a
mechanism by which one person or a group of people, the
author(s),
can
communicate
with
another
group
of
people,
the
readers. The material that is stored and/or communicated
within
the pages
of
a book may be
fact
or
fiction.
Over the centuries, since the introduction of the printing
press,
conventional
books have
played a fundamental
role in a
wide range of information dissemination and knowledge
transfer
activities.
Some
years
ago we analysed the
role
of con-
ventional books in the process of technical knowledge dis-
semination (Barker
&
Manji
1988).
We
identified a number of
important limitations of such books (see Table 1) and sug-
gested that some new form of book was needed in order to
overcome the
limitations of those
that are
printed on
paper.
We
used
the term
'electronic
book'
to describe a
new
form of book
whose pages were
composed,
not from
static printer's
ink,
but
from dynamic electronic information. Generally, we now use
this new
term to describe information delivery
systems
that are
capable of providing their
users
with access
to
pages of reac-
tive
electronic
information with which they
can
interact
As we
shall discuss later (Section 3.1), the pages of information
which
make up an
electronic book
are
conceptually organised
just
like the pages
of a conventional book.
Table
1:
Basic limitations
of conventional books.
— difficult
to
reproduce
— expensive
to
disseminate
— difficult
to
update
—
single copies
cannot easily
be
shared
— easily damaged
and
vandalised
— bulky
to
transport
— embedded
material is
unreactive and static
— cannot
utilise sound
— cannot
utilise
animation
or moving
pictures
— unable
to
monitor reader's activity
— cannot
assess
reader's understanding
— unable
to
adapt material dynamically
Obviously, the properties of a book will depend critically
on the medium in which it is published. Nowadays, three
basic
media
are
commonly used for
this
purpose:
paper,
mag-
netic disc and optical disc. Unfortunately, publication on
paper
renders
the information embedded in
a
book static and
unreactive. In order
to
make its information
reactive
and dy-
namic the book concerned must be published on a suitable
interactive medium (Barker 1991b). Most electronic books
will
therefore
be
published
on
either
magnetic
or optical stor-
age media. Two examples of electronic books that are pub-
The Electronic Library,
Vol.
10,
No.
3,
June 1992 139
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