Treffer: Photons, electrons, and publishing : old wine in new bottles ?

Book publishing, the art of taking ideas sketched on manuscript and transforming them into print, is changing. Are digital facsimilies really replacing print and manuscript? The enormus demand content on the networks makes traditional publishers readily accepted as information providers.

AN9512144108;ONL01NOV.95;1995Dec21.10:38;v2.3

PHOTONS, ELECTRONS, AND PUBLISHING 

<sbt id="AN9512144108-2">Old Wine in New Bottles?</sbt>

Everyone gets so much informtion all day long that they lose their common sense!

<rj>--Gertrude Stein, 1947</rj>

Book publishing, the art of taking ideas sketched on manuscript and transforming them into print, is changing. The permanence of print is giving way to the ghostly reside of electrons and photons, and some would say that the magic of ink and typography is vanishing right before our eyes. But are digital facsimiles really replacing print and manuscript?

Certainly, the last half of this decade will see more technological, economic, legal, and social shifts in the publishing industry than the entire last century. One hundred years ago, the introduction of high-speed (by the standards of the day) mechanical presses, fed by an abundant supply of inexpensive wood pulp-based paper, revolutionized the printing industry. An abundance of readers in the burgeoning middle class created a huge market for cheap books, magazines, and newspapers. The growth of education produced a bumper crop of authors looking for a ready outlet for their opuses. Book publishing is experiencing a similar revolution in this last decade of the 20th century.

"We live in an age of technological turmoil, and books are caught in the swirling edge of a maelstrom that mixes ink, paper, electronics, and money together into combinations that were unthinkable a years ago" [1]. The widespread use of networked computers provides publishers with a convenient vehicle for the distribution of their properties. The enormous demand for content on these networks makes traditional publishers readily accepted as information providers. Finally, the potential economic gain of reaching a global audience is alluring to the most technophobic stock holders, administrators, and authors.

EARLY EXPERIMENTS

Computing is not a new subject for publishers. Despite the claims of some critics, publishers are not technological neophytes or Luddites. Publishers learned quickly that books about computers sell, and sell well compared to other technical topics. The rise in personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s in fact gave birth to several publishing houses dedicated solely to this phenomenon. For example, Rodney Zaks, a computer scientist, started SYBEX in Berkeley, the first independent publisher devoted just to computing. SYBEX has grown into the largest independent publisher of computer books, issuing some 140 titles a year in 26 languages.

Early books about computing were a definite improvement over their competition, which were manuals from computer manufacturers and software developers. Authors, editors, and publishers all recognized the need for practicality and common sense in computing publishing. Programming examples (set off from the rest of the prose by white space and Courier) and screen dumps became standard features in layout and design. With the assistance of ambitious authors and software partners, books began to appear with disks full of templates, programs, files, and demos, a practice that continues to flourish to this day.

These early marriages of print and electrons were testy learning experiences for all involved--from reader to publisher to editor to author. Disks had to be duplicated in quantity and books had to be specially designed to hold a diskette safely, adding production costs to the overall price. Text describing the files on the disk had to be included in the book, both integrated into the body of the book and summarized as an appendix. This process was a new aggravation for some editors, unfamiliar with code and programs. Liability waivers were needed as well just in case the programs didn't quite work the way they were intended. Copyright notices had to be retooled to protect both digital and printed properly. Authors needed to be compensated for both writing and programming, another task some publishers might have found difficult. Book stores had to watch their stock carefully, for thieves walking away with disks ripped flora envelopes on end papers. Nevertheless, the success of books with disks encouraged publishers to continue to explore the electronic medium.

In the 1980s, commercial online services expanded and sought multiple partnerships with publishers. In addition, compact discs became a rapidly available and inexpensive medium. Publishers were faced with several electronic paths for their works, online through fee-based services, or by license for proprietary search engines, interfaces, and text on CD-ROM.

EVOLUTION OF COMPACT DISC PUBLISHING

Compact discs, in their earliest forms, were viewed as profit centers, with proprietary software, licensing agreements, and limited networking capabilities. Engines and interfaces on one CD-ROM from one publisher would not work with those from another. Technical requirements for both computer and end-user were sometimes unrealistic. Variations in licensing contracts, based on usage statistics, discouraged librarians and users. Search engines were unreliable. The text itself in electronic form might not be an exact mirror of its printed original. But, as compact discs became less and less expensive, a greater effort was made with programming expertise and marketing to make the medium more attractive and less idiosyncratic.

CD-ROMs began to appear more and more frequently as supplements to text, replacing disks at the end of books. CD-ROM drives have become a ubiquitous part of the computing landscape, with over five million drives in businesses, over six million in homes, and over two million shipping each year [2]. Compact discs now extend the boundaries of a book, bringing in resources that simply won't fit anywhere else.

Seeing the Unseen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Rochester, NY, George Eastman House, 1994), was created as a tribute to photographer and engineer extraordinaire Harold E. Edgerton. The special format of the book, with its spiral binding and colorful oversized pages, evokes the feel of a laboratory notebook. Sketches, reminiscences by colleagues and students, and extracts from Edgerton's own records make Seeing the Unseen entertaining and educational. Only by including a compact disc sampling of those famous photographic fruits of Strobe Alley at MIT does this book really satisfy a curious reader. A Photo CD, created by the George Eastman House and curator James Sheldon, includes 150 of Edgerton's most famous shots (Figure 1).

In Seeing the Unseen, the compact disc expands the book linearly, by providing content in a more convenient and manipulative way for the reader. But how else could a book be expanded? In Steven Holtzman's Digital Mantras (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1994), a CD-ROM exercises the ears with musical examples. These samples support the author's thesis of the union of abstraction in language, painting, music, and computing. Without the sounds, the music inscribed on the pages is just so many notes to be skipped over and ignored.

COMPACT DISCS AS EXTENSIONS OF PAPER

Penguin Book's Crucible CD-ROM provides an entirely different experience with Arthur Miller's play. Created in England, the compact disc Crucible expands the text of the play with interviews of Dustin Hoffman, Vanessa Redgrave, and the author himself Members of London's Vic Theatre describe their roles. A history takes you from a 15th-century witch manual, Malleus maleficarum, to the more modern witch expedition called the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Thankfully, the Crucible CD-ROM does not include a performance. The publishers and technology wizards behind this product realized quite wisely that some events should be witnessed in person. Indeed, the compact disc adds to the experience and makes it more rewarding than just a simple reading of the plot. A preview of this product can be found at Penguin's home page at http://www.penguin.com/usa/electronic/crucible/(Figure 2).

Curious about the song of the grus grus? What does a sea cucumber really look like? Dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico belong to which species? A series of CD-ROMs from Springer-Verlag can answer all of these questions. Developed by the Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI), the World Biodiversity Database gives both scientists and amateurs a wealth of taxonomic descriptions, photographs, drawings, video, and audio on birds, marine mammals, mollusks, holothurians (or sea cucumbers), lobsters, fish,and other creatures. A description of these CD-ROMs can be found at http://www.springer-ny.com/pub/news/biology/newlist. On my computer, with the Birds of Europe compact disc, I can study an image of the heron-like grus grus, read a technical description of it, study a map of its distribution, pull up an image of its eggs, and listen to its trumpeting "krooh." The World Biodiversity Database clearly breaks the limits of a printed guide to fauna by giving me a complete portrait, with search tools. Thanks to ETI's IdentifyIt software, I can identify a bird or mollusk interactively, using information at hand to scan a compact disc for probable matches. No other field book works this way.

Interactivity is a key trend in the evolution of digital formats, bringing the reader in closer proximity to both author and publisher than ever before. How can a compact disc and book address all the permutations of questions from a reader? One way is to meld print, CD-ROM, and ontline. In Shannon Turlington's Walking the World Wide Web, Ventana Press imaginatively links these media. A CD-ROM with the book gives readers Ventana Mosaic, a version of the World Wide Web browser developed by Spyglass, Inc. With Ventana Mosaic, readers can easily visit servers mentioned in the book, and with the CD-ROM, all of the text of the book is accessible and searchable [3]. Pointers embedded in the CD-ROM text take you directly to sites, if your Internet connection is working. In addition, the book is continuously updated with new anchors at http://kells.vmedia.com/vvc/, eliminating the need for new printings and editions.

Where do these developments lead publishers?

THE ORGANIZING FORCE OF THE WEB AND HTML

The Internet provides both a new form for content, anti a new forum for publishers, authors, and readers. It is a more organized and evolved environment for readers compared to the sometimes chaotic and individualistic offerings on diskettes and CD-ROM. Why?

The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) demands a certain level of basic conformity for all Web documents, a uniformity based on its tags and symbols. Tags identify text as bibliographic components, crucial features for librarians, text engineers, web weavers, and readers. Tags also hold locations in electronic documents for images, audio files, and pointers to other servers and files. Finally, HTML means that certain types of documents can be defined by their structure, repeating elements of an electronic coda identifying a particular kind of file [4].

HTML acts as an organizer of electronic information, bringing together different elements cohesively. For a reader equipped with the right Internet browser and connection, it means that an interface will work in a certain predictable way. It also means that there will be a certain consistency in the ways in which readers examine and read different documents from different publishers on different servers. There is no need to learn different interfaces or bother with the operational demands of a multitude of proprietary engines.

HTML ECONOMICS

For publishers, using the Internet and HTML means a reduced investment in software development for different platforms and for upgrades. The Internet and its engines are under constant revision by parties who are largely outside the publishing industry. Specific programming teams must keep pace with this sort of continued evolution, but need not participate unless so motivated. Dedicated hardware and software, Internet specialists, and connections may cost as much as $100,000 per year, but this investment is considerably less in most cases than caring for and feeding programmers devoted to proprietary efforts [5].

For authors, the Internet means reaching the largest possible audience in the quickest possible way. It also means opening opportunities to interact and explore text with readers as never before. Because of the potential audience, and the possible incomes, the entire relationship between authors and publishers is being revisited [6]. Mass electronic distribution should provide new revenue sources for both authors and publishers, not just publishers. The sums are not trivial [7]. Some authors already feel their works are being exploited digitally with no equitable compensation. Organizations such as the Author's Guild have publicly voiced their concern. It may be up to the courts to ultimately resolve this issue.

A NEW ERA OF READING?

Almost 50 percent of the American public fails to read at least one book a year [8]. Newspaper circulation in 1993 was equal to the circulation in 1960, even though the U.S. population has grown by 75 million people. Newspapers to some are simply "not relevant" [9]. Will Internet information mean that newspapers and books vanish? Or will it stimulate readers to return to print? Several publishers are betting that the Internet is worth the effort, that it is a way of encouraging a return to print by expanding the dimensions of text on paper.

Several newspapers are experimenting with online connections to print, such as the San Jose (CA) Mercury News and the Chicago Tribune. Print editions contain hooks and markers to online editions, so readers can examine expanded versions of print stories, read background notes and press releases, see news that doesn't quite make press time, and even communicate with reporters and editors [10]. Stories are no longer cast in a few perspectives, but instead covered in detail from multiple angles. To examine today's version of the Mercury News, go to http://www. sjmercury. com/today. htm (Figure 3).

FIGHTING PAPER COSTS WITH ELECTRONS

Yet online newspapers are multiplying rapidly on the Internet, numbering in the hundreds from around the world. To get a sense of this explosion, visit one server that points to many of these at http://marketplace.corn/e-papers.list. www/e-papers.home.page.html. Readers may indeed suffocate by ephemera, as Toni Morrison noted [11]. One solution could be search engines to help readers look for specific stories and threads of ideas. DowVision, a project of Dow Jones and WAIS, Inc., provides the means for readers to scan the Wall Street Journal, the current New York Times, Japan Economic Newswire, Business Wire, PR Newswire, and other resources for specific information (Figure 4). Still in an experimental stage, DowVision at http://dowvision. wais.net/dj.html may provide one solution.

Magazines and journals are rapidly migrating to this new environment from the popular newsstand standards of Time, Sports Illustrated, People, and Money (http://www.timeinc.com) to technical offerings from Springer-Verlag and Elsevier Scientific. Elsevier is one of several publishers actively experimenting with this new interface with libraries, in The University Licenses Program (TULIP), and with efforts to invent a digital library at the University of Michigan. At Michigan, Elsevier provides access to 47 journals about oceanography and earth and space sciences, as well as to Geobase, a database on geography, geology, and related areas. In return, Elsevier and the university examine use of electronic information and its impact on printed resources (Figure 5). Further details on the University of Michigan Digital Library Project can be found at http://www. elsevier. nl/info/projects/umdl.htm. These experiments should be most fruitful in resolving sociological and legal questions that cast a dark shadow over much technological work in the use of intellectual property.

FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Clearly, text-based information will change in a networked setting, becoming more elaborate multimedia productions, such as the slick San Diego magazine, Axcess (http://www.internex.net/axcess/). Axcess' success is due in part to an imaginative use of Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop, as well as a real feel for the danger of overloading the network with grossly bloated files.

Alternatively, print publications may truly become interactive, with readers, authors, and publishers working together creatively in ways we can't quite anticipate yet. In part, we don't see the potential for a new kind of publishing experience, trapped by our conceptions of publication in a print-dominated world. One window on a new kind of creative environment comes from some experiments with other media such as film. The strange and entertaining movie, WAX or the Discovery of Television among the Bees, gave birth to Waxweb, a site where readers contribute alternate visions of the original movie (Figure 6). Visit Waxweb at http://bug.village. virginia.edu. Waxweb includes a multimedia version of the original film and databases filled with additions to the original story line. Perhaps there is a future where the boundaries between author, publisher, editor, and reader dissolve.

Readers certainly want information, not just movies on demand or digital shopping malls [12]. Online service providers, as well as traditional publishers, are well aware of this need for content. The future will see information continue to evolve as a commodity, created by this marriage of providers and the owners of intellectual property [13].

This commodity will be one that readers will gladly pay for, creating in turn a whole new generation interested in that old-fashioned effort known as reading. In fact, bookstores will flourish in both real and virtual environments. Already, several bookstores are accessible online. You can scan the shelves of Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon electronically by subject, search a database for specific authors and titles, and set up an account to have your discoveries shipped (http://www.technical.powells.portland.or.us/) (Figure 7). At the digital counter of the Computer Literacy Bookshops, I can search from my desktop for titles and authors, and order on demand http://www. clbooks.com/).

Authors, too, will finally find a way to be compensated according to their imagined worth, as tens of thousands and even millions of readers happily surrender a penny, nickel, or dime for every download of a file. The acceptance of electronic currency should make this development a reality in the near future. Johannes Gutenberg, William Randolph Hearst, and Joseph Pulitzer would all feel quite at home in this new publishing world.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Cork opener

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 1. In the Photo CD accompanying Seeing the Unseen, readers can examine any of some 150 photographs taken by Dr. Harold E. Edgerton. In this photograph, Edgerton captured the first 1/1,000, 000 of a second of an atomic explosion.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 2. Arthur Miller's The Crucible is available on a Penguin Books CD-ROM with interviews, history, and other details. Information on this CD-ROM and its components can also be found on the Crucible Home Page, part of Penguin's home page.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 3. The San Jose Mercury News, one of the best sources of information about Silicon Valley, is available through the Mercury Center on America Online and via the Internet. Only today's Mercury News is available on the Internet. A slick interface makes it easy to examine local or international news, business stories or want ads, all with the click of a ,button.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 4. DowVision, from Dow Jones and WAIS, Inc., gives readers tools to search the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other resources on line.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 5. In the University of Michigan Digital Project, Elsevier Scientific contributes access to 47 scientific journals and a database called Geobase in order to determine how electronic information is used in the scholarly community.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 6. At Waxweb, readers can contribute to the database to alter the plot and subplots of the movie WAX or the Discovery of Television Among Bees. This sort of interaction may be a precursor for future electronic books and journals on a large scale, where print and other static media carry only one version of a story, which may exist in multiple states and versions on networks and servers.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIGURE 7. Powell's Technical Bookstore in Portland, Oregon makes it possible for customers to scan shelves. search databases, and place orders for books over the Internet.

REFERENCES

<ct id="AN9512144108-12">[1] Benson, Richard. "A Flash of Inspiration." New York Times Book Review (March 19, 1995): p. 24. [2] Brandel, William. "Never, Never [3] Ventana Press and Spyglass signed a licensing agreement in January 1995 allowing Ventana to distribute Enhanced Mosaic in its products and to create an integrated print, CD-ROM, and online medium for its readers. See Shannon R. Turlington, Walking the World Wide Web. Chapel Hill, NC: Ventaria Press, 1995, 322pp. with CD-ROM. [4] Sutton, Brett. "Towards World Literature in Electronic Formats: Three Promising Technical Developments." Illinois Libraries 76, No. 4 (Fall 1994): pp. 207-208. [5] Fryer, Browyn. "Net Sales." Computerworld 28, No. 36 (Sept. 5, 1994): p. 118. [6] Read, for example, David Bartlett's excellent article, "The Soul of the News Machine: Electronic Journalism in the Twenty-First Century," in the Federal Communications Law Journal 47, No. 1, available at http://www. law. indiana. edu/fclj/v47/no1/bartlett.html. [7] If John Markoff of the New York Times distributed one hundred of his stories on the Internet, and if one two-hundredth of the Internet population was willing to pay two cents per story for the right to read and download them, what would Markoff earn in a year? According to Nicholas Negroponte, the figure would be $1,000,000. See Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital. NY: Knopf, 1995, pp. 83-84. [8] Mediamark Research, Inc. "Nearly Half the Nation Doesn't Buy Books." USA Today, Sect. 1 (June 24, 1993): p. 1. [9] According to Kristin McGrath of MORI Research, Inc., quoted in Tim Jones. "Newspapers Struggle to Read between the Lines." Chicago Tribune, Sect. 7 (May l, 1994): p. 3. [10] Valauskas, Edward J. "Newspapers as Databases: The San Jose Mercury-News and the Mercury Center." DATABASE 16, No. 5 (Oct. 1993): pp. 88-90. [11] Morrison, as quoted in Jones, p. 3. [12] Booker, Ellis, Gary H. Anthes, and Mitch Betts. "Users Want Information Over Entertainment." Computerworld 28, No. 42 (Oct. 17, 1994): p. 66. [13] Dyson, Esther. "Information Underneath." Computerworld 28, No. 41 (Oct. 10, 1994): p. 37.</ct>

By Edward J. Valauskas

Communications to the author should be addressed to Edward J. Valauskas, 5050 South Lake Shore Dr., Apt. 3214, Chicago, IL 60615; 312/363-9085; Internet--G0094@applelink.apple.com.