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D. Online Reference
A visit to
on-line Encyclopaedia Britannica demonstrates some of tremendous, mind boggling possibilities of online reference - as well as some of obstacles.
Each entry in this mammoth work of reference is hyperlinked to relevant Web sites. The sites are carefully screened. Links are available to data in various forms, including audio and video. Everything can be copied to hard disk or to a R/W CD.
This is a new conception of a knowledge centre - not just a heap of material. The content is modular and continuously enriched. It can be linked to a voice Q&A centre. Queries by subscribers can be answered by e-mail, by fax, posted on site, hard copies can be sent by post. This "Trivial Pursuit" or "homework" service could be very popular - there is considerable appetite for "Just in Time Information". The Library of Congress - together with a few other libraries - is in process of making just such a service available to public (CDRS - Collaborative Digital Reference Service).
E. Derivative Content
The Internet is an enormous reservoir of archives of freely accessible, or even public domain, information.
With a minimal investment, this information can be gathered into coherent, theme oriented, cheap compilations (on CD-ROMs, print, e-books or other media).
F. E-Publishing
The Internet is by far world's largest publishing platform. It incorporates FAQs (Q&A's regarding almost every technical matter in world), e-zines (electronic magazines), electronic versions of print dailies and periodicals (in conjunction with on-line news and information services), reference material, e-books, monographs, articles, minutes of discussions ("threads"), conference proceedings, and much more besides.
The Internet represents major advantages to publishers. Consider electronic version of a p-zine.
Publishing an e-zine promotes sales of printed edition, it helps sign on subscribers and it leads to sale of advertising space. The electronic archive function (see next section) saves need to file back issues, physical space required to do so and irritating search for data items.
The future trend is a combined subscription to both electronic edition (mainly for archival value and ability to hyperlink to additional information) and to print one (easier to browse current issue). The Economist is already offering free access to its electronic archives as an inducement to its print subscribers.
The electronic daily presents other advantages:
It allows for immediate feedback and for flowing, almost real-time, communication between writers and readers. The electronic version, therefore, acquires a gyroscopic function: a navigation instrument, always indicating deviations from "right" course. The content can be instantly updated and breaking news incorporated in older content.
Specialty hand held devices already allow for downloading and storage of vast quantities of data (up to 4000 print pages). The user gains access to libraries containing hundreds of texts, adapted to be downloaded, stored and read by specific device. Again, a convergence of standards is to be expected in this field as well (the final contenders will probably be Adobe's PDF against Microsoft's MS-Reader).
Currently, e-books are dichotomously treated either as:
Continuation of print books (p-books) by other means, or as a whole new publishing universe.
Since p-books are a more convenient medium then e-books - they will prevail in any straightforward "medium replacement" or "medium displacement" battle.
In other words, if publishers will persist in simple and straightforward conversion of p-books to e-books - then e-books are doomed. They are simply inferior and cannot offer comfort, tactile delights, browseability and scanability of p-books.
But e-books - being digital - open up a vista of hitherto neglected possibilities. These will only be enhanced and enriched by introduction of e-paper and e-ink. Among them:
Hyperlinks within e-book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc.; Embedded instant shopping and ordering links; Divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines; Interaction with other e-books (using a wireless standard) - collaborative authoring or reading groups; Interaction with other e-books - gaming and community activities; Automatically or periodically updated content; Multimedia; Database, Favourites, Annotations, and History Maintenance (archival records of reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related decisions and much more); Automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities; Full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking capabilities. The technology is still not fully there. Wars rage in both wireless and e-book realms. Platforms compete. Standards clash. Gurus debate. But convergence is inevitable and with it e-book of future.
G. The Archive Function
The Internet is also world's biggest cemetery: tens of thousands of deadbeat sites, still accessible - "Ghost Sites" of this electronic frontier.
This, in a way, is collective memory. One of Internet's main functions will be to preserve and transfer knowledge through time. It is called "memory" in biology - and "archive" in library science. The history of Internet is being documented by search engines (Google) and specialized services (Alexa) alike.
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Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101 .
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
