A BRIEF HISTORY OF E-BOOKS

Outline

The Memex and Vannevar Bush Project Gutenberg World Wide Web-based e-book projects Google Books Commercial E-book Publishers and

Aggregators E-Readers

Why Study the Past?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-George Santayana, philosopher

The Memex and Vannevar Bush Storage device using microfilm Early conception of hypertext

Requirements for E-books

Electronic storage of information Distribution method Need

Education Literary research Publishing

Project Gutenberg (1)

First electronic book – 1971 U.S. Declaration of Independence Stored on computer at Univ. of Illinois

Year # of e-books

1989 10

1994 100

2003 10,000

2012 >40,000

Project Gutenberg (2)

Keying books by hand Work done by volunteers Free service Early e-books lacked metadata

Other Early E-Book Projects

Perseus Digital Library Hypertext Editing System and FRESS

projects (Andries van Dam, Brown University)

Characterized by: local availability experimental in nature designed for specific needs

World Wide Web-based E-Book Projects

Potential for millions of readers Hypertext capability Digitization of unique resources Projects to benefit scholars Examples:

University of Virginia’s E-text Center (1992-)

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Virginia Tech

Google Books

Digitization project goal: scan as many books as possible to create online digital library

Partners: commercial publishers, academic libraries

Lawsuits (began 2005) Settlement in 2008 Continues in courts today

Commercial E-book Publishers and Aggregators

NetLibrary (1998) Full-text searching Note-taking, bookmarking, copy-and-paste

text EBL, ebrary, MyiLibrary, … Primary target: libraries Individual publishers: Springer Verlag,

Elsevier

E-Readers

Rocket Books Kindles

Market share in 2012: Sony E-Readers and Barnes and Noble

Nooks

E-Readers in Libraries

First reports in 2009 OSU’s experience

Initial purchase of 5 Kindles Later purchase of another 13 Kindles Link to website