info NeoGnostic: Frankfurt - Publishers - e-Books

: Name: Chris Armstrong; Location: Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom

I am the owner and managing director of Information Automation Limited (IAL), a company that specialises in research, consultancy and training for the information profession. We are particularly interested in all forms of electronic information resources (e-journals, e-books, etc) and I teach a course in electronic publishing at the Department of Information Studies in Aberystwyth. Drilling down still further(!), my interests centre on the quality and evaluation of electronic information, and in the thinking that underpins activities in library and information science.

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Sunday, October 14, 2007

Frankfurt - Publishers - e-Books - e-Book Readers

Information World Review - in a further report from the Frankfurt Book Fair - reports that Wiley Chairman Peter Wiley and Stephen Smith, Wiley senior VP for Europe & International Development, are claiming that textbooks will soon be available digitally and that publishers will "drive the adoption of e-book readers". Stephen Smith noted that e-Book Readers are the key to the success of electronic text books. Is this textbooks on every student's personal reader (something I've been forecasting for a while)?

"We may have to try to influence the tipping point of eBook readers," Smith said. "The ability of government and teachers to keep pace with technology is difficult. Anything that comes along to help learning is critical, and it is important that publishers play a part."

Meanwhile TeleRead notes that 44% of 'biz pros' (whatever they are?!) surveyed at Frankfurt

identified the use of e-books as a key area of growth for the industry.

So that's pretty good news from Frankfurt for the e-book industry. The latest title added to my Writings about e-book publishing, 2007 is Terje Hillesund's recent First Monday article. I have always been a 'fan' of his pieces on e-books and, as this one, in which he takes apart John Thompson's Books in the Digital Age: The transformation of academic and higher publishing in Britain and the United States - principally because of its mistaken suggestion that the e-book industry is going nowhere despite the great expectations of the 1990s, supports both my own view... AND NOW the view from Frankfurt, I cannot but recommend it too.

>>Technorati tags: ebooks; readers; publishers