Frederick Nesta Lingnan University 聶思達 嶺南大學 E-Texts and E-Books: Misconceptions and Missed Opportunities 電子文本和電子書之 誤解與錯失良機 Frederick Nesta Lingnan University 聶思達 嶺南大學

E-Text Not an E-Book Electronic texts are more analogous to a scroll than a codex The advantages of the codex may be lost in the digital world, rather than enhanced

Print Preference 64% increase in the number of new books published in the United States from 1999 to 2004 291,920 new US titles in 2006. Computer books are declining but e-texts are not driving publishers from print Number of print books has doubled from 1.1. million to 2.5 million since 1993 Sales of e-texts only 0.2% of all US books sales in 2006 15% of respondents in a 2005 OCLC survey reported using online texts, compared to 47% who used online bookshops

Three Problems Usability Access Budgeting

Codex Advantages Flipping through text Photocopying Markup Portability Multiple texts open at the same time Indexing Open platform

Digital Scroll Links to footnotes? Bookmarking? Annotation? Copying? Not portable? Slow Consider that online newspapers are very different from print newspapers. The nature of the medium has be considered in design.

Access No Inter-library loan for digital texts Digital-only publishing? Viability of digital texts in the future If digital texts are screen only, time spent at library computers goes up. Can libraries supply enough workstations?

Reference Works Reference will shift to digital only Move to subscription rather than purchase Commitment for the future Cost of continual ownership?

Reference Works Access to ‘old’ data problematical Will digital reference maintain an archive that will provide historical data, variant interpretations? Cost of continual ownership? Will vendors create new backfile sets for purchase?

Reference Works Substantial Reference works become invisible: the 34 volumes of Grove display as single line in Grove Art Online

Discovery vs. Access Main value of digital texts is discovery: finding the right footnote Digital text platforms are fragmented and search functions limited

will do it all anyway? Many library digital projects isolated and hidden Google, MSN, other projects fragmented, quality varies MSN just announced that it will not continue to scan books – it can’t compete with Google and books don’t bring in advertising Scholarly apparatus lacking

Discovery Greatest merit of Google Book Search is discovery National copyright deposit agencies should do similar scanning Imagine full-text searchable OPACs

The Middle Way? How people actually use texts should guide choice of format Consider ramifications of digital world Sharing Costs Financial Equipment/Space/Time Archiving Push for better discovery tools

Nesta@ln.edu.hk