#22740
E-books are a cost-saving technology for students. Imagine while reading your expensive paper textbook that it suddenly displayed a video that taught you the technique you just read about. Imagine searching through your textbook with the click of a button. Imagine your textbook costing about half of what you used to pay. That’s right—you didn’t read the last line wrong. It was half the amount you used to pay. Imagine all this and more, with e-books. E-books have many advantages over paper textbooks. The best advantage for students would have to be the cost. E-books are sold at very low prices because the whole printing process is out of the picture. This saves money for the publishers and in turn saves money for students.
Nelson, Daniel. Techniques (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#13342
E-Books: Are We Going Paperless?
Will electronic books (e-books) change the experience of reading? Will students soon carry a mobile device in their backpacks instead of a ton of textbooks? Some major university projects at the University of Michigan and at Columbia have already created and distributed electronic versions of textbooks (Epstein, 1999). In addition, Microsoft joined publishing firms and electronic manufacturers to set open technical standards for the electronic book format (Wired News, 1999). So what advantages do e-books offer? Some advantages include convenience and reduced storage space. Anywhere from 10 to 250 textbooks or novels can be held on the device, depending on the e-book model, so you can have a portion of your library with you. In addition, users can annotate, highlight, bookmark, and publish their own content on the e-book. By removing the need for paper, the cost of books should decrease and also decrease environmental damage. Another advantage of the e-book is accessibility. Those with visual impairments can increase the font size to improve readability.
Selvidge, Paula and C. Phillips. Usability News (2000). Articles>Usability>Publishing>eBooks
#22286
E-Books: It's About Evolution, Not Revolution
This article is a general update about the state of the art and business of e-books. With the dampening of some of the dot.com hype the e-book picture is actually becoming more sensible. There is still a lot of change happening and no one knows where we might end up, but some solid work is being done both on the technology and on the business side. What isn't quite happening yet, and what I look forward to, is a re-definition of "book" to include things that didn't really fit into the hard copy world, such as the publication of individual essays (of any length), stories, poems, novellas, etc., and even possibly a return to serialized works. Put your thinking caps on, folks, there are great possibilities!
Coyle, Karen. Library Journal (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#14795
The eBook Advantage: Writing and Publishing Electronic Books 
Hall, the author of three eBooks, explains how technical writers can earn extra income by writing and publishing their own electronic books.
Hall, Ceil W. Intercom (2002). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#21483
eBook Italia Dossier: Il Libro Elettronico e L'editoria Digitale Umanistica in Italia
Il primo dossier italiano sul libro elettronico, annualmente aggiornato (versione 3, 1 settembre 2003). In parallelo, eBook Italia Forum, convegno virtuale sull'editoria elettronica, in collaborazione con 365 Giorni in Fiera (Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Torino).
Reale, Luigi M. Italianistica Online (2001). (Italian) Articles>Publishing>eBooks>Italy
#19929
eBooks: A Battle for Standards 
After a decade, however, my initial enthusiasm over eBooks has waned considerably. Rather than looking forward to a new title as it becomes available, I immediately ask which format the title is available in, question how I can best access the title (which operating system, using which eBook reading application), scheme about how best to convert it to a more convenient format, and then eventually give up caring. Certainly, eBooks still hold a great deal of unrealized promise.
Cesarini, Paul. TWI (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#27530
Online Flipping: Examination of the Digital FlipViewer
This article examines the usability of FlipViewer software for digital FlipBooks. The FlipViewer software allows users to read online documents in a three-dimensional e-book format simulates a paper document. Participants performed 11 tasks with a FlipBook and their performance was evaluated. Some tasks were difficult for participants to complete, however, participants were satisfied overall with their experience using FlipViewer® and 100% indicated that they would recommend the product to others.
Hull, Spring S. Usability News (2005). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#18639
This document will lay out the heated rights controversy concerning the use of synthetic speech -- Text-To-Speech (TTS) as it relates to the use of eBook publications by persons with disabilities.
Kerscher, George and Jim Fruchterman. OeB (2002). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#18640
Survey on Electronic Book Features
While people may not want a radical departure from the paper book, they want to do things with electronic books that are not possible with paper books. For example, they want to 'personalize' their electronic book reading experience by changing the fonts, typefaces, and margins, moving illustrations and tables around the page, sizing images differently than text, and so on. In effect, people want to manage the presentation of information within the electronic book. This raises an issue because not only do people want to manage presentation, they want to add content to electronic books they purchased. For example, they may read a related article and want to add that content to the book. Adding content should not be viewed as simply creating an annotation or note but adding content that becomes part of the book and incorporated into the table of contents and index.
Henke, Harold. OeB (2002). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#25158
The internet and e-book technology gives you the power of independence-the power to create your own e-books and sell them online.
Van Buren, Chris and Jeff Cogswell. Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Articles>Publishing>Online>eBooks
#33973
The Struggle for Book Access: Amazon
The Kindle2 is a hot topic in the disability field right now. Many print-disabled people (people who are blind, severely dyslexic or a have a physical disability that keeps them from reading regular print books) see electronic books as a dream come true. But, it's a dream that the commercial ebook vendors keep dashing.
Fruchterman, Jim. Benetech (2009). Articles>Publishing>Accessibility>eBooks
