Questia

An important characteristic of digital content is its ability to deliver to multiple platforms simultaneously—to print, Web and mobile channels. Invariably, the same content will look different when viewed on various output devices, and it should. Each device has its own display characteristics, and the design of the presentation should be optimized for that device. I can hear the groans from publishers already. Reach for the ibuprofen now, because it gets worse: Content also varies within the same delivery medium. For example, content may be syndicated on the Web to multiple delivery partners, whose respective delivery models require alterations to the design. Even large-print

With the advent of electronic ink, or e-ink, the Sony Reader, the Amazon Kindle and the .epub formatting protocols, the era of the e-book in the United States may be on its way. If you are a publisher or book producer, sooner or later you will be delivering electronic versions of all of your titles for distribution through a burgeoning network of electronic channels—if you’re not already doing so. It may be tomorrow, it may be next year or possibly later, but I guarantee the need to do so will be thrust upon you by the marketplace. While it is true that complex

Researchers and academics who use the Internet for research now have more resources from which to choose. Cambridge University Press has entered an agreement with online academic library Questia Media Inc. to add 1,000 of its titles to Questia's online collection. The agreement expands the library's collection to 50,000 academic textbooks. Troy Williams, president and chief executive officer of Questia Media, notes that while a large amount of public domain material (material published before 1923) exists online , making copyrighted material available to researchers is "a pressing need that Questia is addressing." Fee-based access ensures that publishers are compensated for the material and that

A workshop examining the potential of e-books was recently held in Bangalore, India, to identify the issues and complexities involved in e-book projects, and determine the role of e-books in education, research and libraries. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) hosted the invitation-only workshop, which brought together publishers, distributors and users from Asia and Europe. Over 70 participants examined how the projected $400 billion industry will affect authors, publishers, distributors and consumers, and the challenges e-books face—short-lived technologies, and incompatible and non-interoperable formats and standards. "The e-book industry and marketplace is a nebulous one with each of [its] players

On the heels of a fabulous BookTech East 2001, take pause to reflect on the new opportunities afforded by budding technologies It seems somewhat redundant to say these are exciting times for the book publishing industry, when clearly this is not a new phenomenon. Technologies supporting the digital publishing process are virtually spewing from R&D labs like molten lava. There's a lot of hot stuff out there from which to pick and choose. And to raise the industry's temperature even higher, the business is abuzz with tales of publishers taking bold leaps of faith with new media business models. New stuff Just a few