TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for December, 2003

By David Rothman

The eBook Community list, the town square of e-bookdom, will be eight years old on January 5.

Jon Noring moderates and says TeBC has 1,970 members and is adding a few more each day. Members include everyone from e-book newbies and garage publishers to industry veterans at companies such as Palm Digital Media and Xerox.

Among general-interest e-book lists, TeBC is the most prestigious and probably the oldest as well. It started out as the “eBook-List” (not to be confused with the current e-books list, which Jon does not run).

When Jon announced the creation of TeBC under the original name, guess what was the first of his sample topics? Format-related issues! And the second sample was even more specific: “Should a ’standardized’ electronic book format be developed for the long-term future? Is it even possible?” His feelings today? Emphatically yes! I like those priorities.

Happy birthday, TeBC! And best wishes to all our readers in ‘04!

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Funny. The “E-books and docs” tab seems to have vanished from my Amazon.com pages as best I can determine. On the other hand, I’m still able to limit my search to e-books if I use the selector at the left of the page. So, Amazon, what’s up? Are you playing down your e-bookstore for the moment–or just saying, “A book is a book”? Or maybe in the midst of some virtual remodeling?

Detail: I’ve left a message with Amazon for the lowdown here. Anyone know more?

(Via the e-books list.)

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Even William Goldman would agree that not all recent movies stink.

One of the best is director Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. Based on a book with a similar title, it’s about a master forger in the 1960s, who, if a young hacker today, would be a brilliant social engineer and perhaps a great coder, too.

This teenaged high school dropout didn’t just forge $2.5 milion in checks. He also passed himself off as a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, you name it, including, just as the FBI was trying to arrest him, a Secret Service agent. The feds eventually threw the book at Frank W. Abagnale, pictured below as a middle-aged author, lecturer and fraud-prevention consultant; but he atoned brilliantly through his work for the FBI and the financial services industry.

Abagnale as a reverse social engineer for the good guys?

So here’s the deal for the e-book business. Isn’t it just possible that either pro bono or for much less than he charges international banking empires, Abagnale could help come up with a good nonproprietary system of DRM Lite? No need for Abagnale to do the coding. Rather he could at least help the Open eBook Forum or an equivalent deal with the human factors here. At the same time an e-book organization could set up a focus group of readers and find out just what they would and would not consider convenient. Needless to say, the OeBF could also consult with accomplished hackers and top security experts, such as Bruce Schneier, who has warned against the perils of proprietary encryption, where not as many people can kick the tires. Maybe even Winston Smith, himself a bright high school dropout, who has outsmarted security specialists in an actual e-reader context but without monetary rewards in mind, would show some interest here.

Would the above efforts create a crackproof DRM? No, of course not. We’re talking about DRM with consumer convenience in mind. But at least this approach would be far better than the heavy-handed proprietary ones from the software industry. We already know that DRM systems from Adobe and Microsoft and Palm Digital Media are crackable. So why should e-book publishers pay anything extra for them? Ditto for e-book formats themselves; best to wave good-bye to proprietary standards and go with a refinement of the OeBF’s own Open eBook Publication Structure. With standardization of formats and well-integrated DRM at the consumer level, e-books could actually be more secure–not just because of the kick-the-tires factor, but also because updates would be less of a hassle.

If you want star quality…

Again, let me emphasize that Frank Abagnale would be just one of many people involved, but chances are he could make more than his share of contributions. From a cost-benefit perspective, I doubt he’d be that affordable for individual sellers of e-book software–considering the pathetic $10M in annual sales of actual e-books. But if the OeBF approached him and said, “Look, here’s a good deed you can do for the entire book world, including libraries,” Abagnale just might oblige. What’s more, his efforts might also be useful to the movie and recording businesses, whose DRM efforts the OeBF has been tracking. It’s no small coincidence that I began this item with mention of a movie. Yo, Jack Valenti! If you want star quality in a theft-prevention expert, Frank Abagnale just might be your man.

Just a reminder: I myself am not the biggest fan of DRM, but recognize there are certain situations, such as legal file-sharing or library use, where it could be handy. If nothing else, this would be a nice security blanket for e-book publishers insistent on it. They’d actually be far better off than trusting Adobe, Microsoft and Palm Digital Media–the companies whose flawed and proprietary DRM has given us the costly Tower of eBabel.

If not Abagnale: If he isn’t interested, remember there are other well-known experts in fraud-prevention whose participation would show publishers that the OeBF or a similar group was dead-serious about protection of intellectual property.

Detail: While I’d hope that Abagnale could donate some time or at least discount it heavily, I still believe that techie standard-setters–ordinary folks with gas and groceries and no mega incomes–should be paid a decent amount for their efforts it all possible. Even token payments would help. Ironic, isn’t it? E-book publishers understandably want intellectual proprety protected–under the premise that work has value. Well, the standard setters’ time is worth something, too. If nothing else, this would consideraby speed up the standards process.

A TeleRead angle: Needless to say, well-stocked national digital library systems–with affordable subscription and purchase plans for people outside the countries with such systems–would be one way to help reduce the incentive for e-book piracy. Interestingly, I can see a possible role here for one of Abagnale’s clients, NuTech Solutions, or other companies that specialize in predicting business risks. In the case of TeleRead, the risk is that large but fair payments for best-sellers would be budget budgers without suitable precautions. A NuTech-style company could help refine already-mentioned possiblities, such as publishers paying money up front and along the way to qualify for maximum revenues.

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While PDAs can be great for electronic books in many cases, I’ve now got even more reason to question the e-book industry’s love of this platform.

In dealings with PDA buyers, some Ernestine imitators at Dell are slavishly plagiarizing in real life from Lily Tomlin.

Relying on outfits like Dell is a great way to screen out booklovers who aren’t committed techies or expert bureaucracy-fighters. Customers had better learn to deal with morons in departments with Orwellian names like “customer care.”

Scary even for geeks

Mine isn’t the only horror story inspired by Dell and other PDA vendors. Geek.com has some beauts.

I’d love to see the outfits like the AARP, NEA, ALA and maybe even library systems arranging for mass purchases of better machines for e-books–such as tablets. From Dell? Maybe. But only with enough clout on the consumers’ side. I can see a role for book chains, too. As flawed as p-book stores can be, their service is stellar by computer industry standards.

Ideally the tablets could display e-books better and hopefully be sold and swapped out–if defective–in a more consumer-friendly way. While powerful color-screened tablets aren’t affordable for the masses, that day will come soon enough. Meanwhile consumers are in PDA Hell.

Existing PDA sellers can’t hack it

The existing PDA biz just can’t hack it. Would you believe, PDA sales actually fell slightly in the third quarter of ‘03 while PC sales went up. That’s partly because cell phones are the craze and the PDA makers aren’t as inventive as before–but I suspect that the public is also put off by the way the vendors people take consumers for granted, despite the fact that the machines are personal digital assistants.

All too often PDA owners end up in the “computer boot camp” portrayed in the commercials for Dell. Except that the worst drill sergeants often aren’t techies at all. They’re just business-side morons who can say little more than “That’s not our policy.”

Mention “customer loyalty”–I own two Dell desktop bought directly from the company–and the Ernestines and male equivalents at Dell will come up with gems such as: “That’s not a factor.” No irony. They mean it. Seriously.

Oh, the fun Joseph Heller could have had with this.

Telephone fiends

Dell’s “customer care” bozos balked when I kept trying to send them $120 for a two-year “advanced customer exchange” policy on a refurb Axim X5 for which I had paid $130 and shipping. I like the jog lever. Great for moving through e-books. Wonder if the new models would be as good.

So far I haven’t succeeded at getting Dell to take my money despite the mini-killing that the company could make off me. Why? Because I was evil enough to have bought the refurb from a well-known discounter, which understandably doesn’t want to reveal its sources to Dell (although I’m absolutely convinced they’re legit).

As caring as Ernestine on a bad day

If my experiences are representative, is it any wonder why PDAs are not selling as well as they should? Now that I own a Dell PDA, the ‘tude is: “We don’t have to care. We’re the computer company.” Dell said it might take as long as 15 business days just to get the change of name processed, assuming it was even granted. And that would be before I sent the existing machine in for an exchange.

Oh, and the much-ballyhooed Dell techies did not quite come through either. While ActiveSync on my Dell still isn’t working perfectly, it is back in service again after more than a little troubleshooting on my part. I presently believe that buggy software from Dell or Microsoft, not the actual hardware, has caused my problems. They beset me after I did a Microsoft security update on my Optiplex with which my Axim now communicates when earth and Mars are properly aligned.

Someone at a large federal agency reports similarly dismal results from Dell. I wonder if the CIA deals with ‘em. Perhaps Dell’s customer worry supervisor will be terminated someday with extreme prejudice. I’d send people to HP and IBM, but still can feel the sting of old memories from the former–when the techies kept denying that my hard disk was defective, right up to the time it crashed.

Rx if your organization deals with Dell:
Mafia-style procurement officers

Just the same, the benefits of the technology are worth it, considering the joys of e-books–all the more reason for libraries to hold PDA classes.

Plus, libraries and other mass buyers can sic Mafia-style procurement officers on Dell and the like, with heavy penalties for nonperformance.

Still, that won’t help me now. Sad, isn’t it? Dell won’t even let itself gouge me. My friendly suggestion is for Michael Dell to bring back the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” guy and put him in charge of “customer care.” He might be pushy, but never as obnoxiously anal as the customer worry specialists.

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Will Palm Digital Media do a Smartphone reader for e-books? On Monday I raised the possibility that commercial rivalries with Microsoft might get in the way–another argument for a Universal Consumer Format.

Without discussing the UCF issue, Craig Froehle, a University of Cincinnati professor, who founded the company that became Memoware, kindly shared his own thoughts on Palm and SmartPhones after seeing my Saturday mention of the topic. He himself said Palm-Microsoft rivalries would get in the way.

At the same time, he disagrees with me about phones’ potential for e-book reading. I think that screens are already sufficient for addicts who need serious e-book fixes, and Mobipocket feels likewise. Craig isn’t so sure. And now, here’s Craig’s full letter:

A point of clarification on your story.

There’s insufficient motivation for anyone to generate a Palm Digital Media reader for Microsoft Smartphones.

Palm Digital Media is now owned by PalmGear HQ, a software archive company that focuses *exclusively* on Palm OS devices.  Plus, Palm OS has its own crop of “smartphones” (e.g. Treo 600, Kyocera 7135, Samsung SGH-i500, etc.).  So, the company that controls Palm Digital Media’s format and reader apps isn’t likely to support a competitor’s platform.  Granted, they might sell a few more ebooks, but I doubt that many more. Most smartphones have low-res screens, making the reading experience mediocre at best. Plus, folks haven’t exactly adopted PDA ebook reading overwhelmingly…I cant imagine they will be more receptive to using their phones for that task (especially when battery life is already a major concern with phones).

Also, PalmGear isn’t that big a company, so it’s unlikely that it has the $$ or staff just waiting around ready to be put towards developing an MS Smartphone-compatible reader.

Besides, isn’t Microsoft’s big claim that you write an app once and it works on all the various Windows Mobile devices?  Doesn’t seem very smart for a company that depends on the success of Palm OS to go around supporting products from the behemoth from Redmond.

Anyway, interesting article, but I think it overlooks some of the “market realities” involved.

Further thoughts from me: While tablets are better than PDAs for e-books in many cases, this isn’t universally true. On the go, I much prefer a more compact machine like my Dell Axim. Of course, one of the biggest negative of PDAs is that they’re not treated as true consumer items, but rather require you to deal not only with the technology but also with absolute morons on the business side. See the above item.

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In the early ’90s we said e-books could help reading survive the multimedia onslaught.

Now comes a depressing headline out of Denver: Library books play second fiddle to videos, CDs. Perhaps the Denver library system and others need to borrow a page from teacher Amos Bokros and think about using e-book-related tech in new ways–just as he did to reach book-hating teenagers.

In fairness to the Denver library, it is trying out netLibrary; and, on the Web, the system promotes its electronic text resources well. But that’s not enough.

netLibrary, for example, is obviously a hassle for Denver residents to use. Would you believe, you can browse an e-book only in “15 minute intervals”? And you can check out an e-book from home for only 24 hours. Hardly the best test of e-books!

I also wonder how much help the Denver library system is giving e-book users. Wouldn’t hurt to have a class on PDA use, for example, with e-books in mind. Plus, libraries could arrange to sell memory cards with e-books already loaded in–and work with PC and Mac clubs to help install e-book reading software on people’s PDAs. Used PDAs fit for young book-lovers with good eyes–or for others who care more about words than about how they appear on the screen–cost all of $50-$75 or so.

Given the affordability of the technology, Denver libraries and schools could launch joint fund-raising campaigns with e-books and young readers in mind. Together they could work to get kids the gizmos for reading Jules Verne and Doc Savage electronically–in fact, even the Bobbsey Twins. Cost of the just-linked titles: $0. They’re in the public domain and can be reproduced endlessly for free.

Libraries as e-book-promoters

Do-gooder reasons are why I’m interested in e-books for libraries. But if nothing else, the industry needs to consider the marketing potential here. What better place than a library–with its relaxed atmosphere–for readers to befriend the technology? Public-domain books could whet people’s appetite for commercial titles.

Meanwhile, for a preview of a future without a TeleRead-style approach or even the traditional library one, here is an excerpt from the Denver Post:

The ominous news for book fans is the same: As budget-squeezed public libraries rush to buy DVDs for an insatiable public, branches must act more like multimedia centers and less like temples of the printed page.

The relentless boom in information captured on DVD, videotape, CD and cassette tape–not to mention rivers of data flowing into homes on high-speed Internet–has rapidly transformed the way people use libraries. In Denver, 53 percent of all circulation now comes from the audio-visual collections, led by pop music on CDs, Hollywood hits on DVD, and bestselling books on tape.

I’m all in favor of multimedia when used well–for example, the lending of training videos or adaptations of the great literary classics. And video within bounds for simple recreational use is fine. But isn’t Denver overdoing it? How much of this is to keep up the demand for library services to justify budgets and retain library jobs? With so much money devoted to videos, we’re not just talking about the use of them to lure children to libraries and sell them on books. From the Post again:

Most librarians say they aren’t inclined to waste time waxing nostalgic about books. Library credos, local and national, proclaim the goal of providing information to all, with no bias in favor of the book.

“The library is about people,’ said Ann Cress, associate director of public services at Jefferson County. “We try to build the collection that our population wants.’

“So many of us are attached to the text, and the paper, and the binding. It’s so tactile,’ said Beth Elder, senior collection specialist for Denver Public Library. “But many of our customers are leaving text behind.”

Time for clueful librarians and the e-book industry to stand up? I’ve already suggested more hand-holding to acquaint readers with e-book technology (and content, too!). What’s more, can’t libraries at least try harder to tie e-books and p-books in with the DVDS and the rest? That at least would help keep reading alive in the p-book era and especially help open up possibilities for public-domain e-books from the free Project Gutenberg collection. Via Gutenberg, libraries could do something much better than just circulate books in the traditional sense–namely, give them away.

E-books in the right contexts

Also, while waiting for the technology to get still better and for the format and DRM questions to be settled, more libraries need to dabble with the lending out of e-book readin hardware to encourage people to get their own. That would be one way to determine which kids really could benefit from their own PDAs.

Whatever the age, context is all. Couldn’t elderly library users benefit from the ability of the technology to blow up letters on the screen? Too, how about the use of special technology for special needs? In his recent essay for us, Amos Bokros told how he was finally reading at a nice clip now–thanks to a mix of digitized text, speech synthesis and highlighted words.

Yes, technology like this and e-books in general will require librarians to introduce readers to it. No shortcuts. Same with paper books, in fact. Enough librarians need to be around to connect the right library users (”patrons” in libraryese) with the right books, whatever the medium. Those are legitimate ways to justify library budgets. But competition with video stores? Absolutely not! This is Carnegie in reverse. Amazon.com for the elite, second-rate Blockbuster for the masses. TeleRead, anyone?

(Found via LISnews.)

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The PDA is the e-book platform now. But could electronic publishers and their techie overlords at places like Palm Digital Media be betting too heavily on it–without nurturing some more-consumer-friendly alternatives?

Palm Digital Media and Microsoft won’t even bother right now with e-book-reading software for the Microsoft Smartphone. But wait! Aren’t a heck of a lot more cellular phones being sold than PDAs? And won’t the displays on phones be growing in size and quality, given all the built-in digital cameras? Mightn’t other ergonomical factors improve as well? Beyond that, phones could make it much easier for people to download books than having to put up with the present challenges of buying books on the Web. The Net is my favorite way of getting a book; but not everyone feels the same.

If nothing else, remember that phones are consumer devices without all the complexities that PDAs impose on nongeeks who want to do little more than just keep lists of phone numbers and appointments. Yes, phones do have layers of features. But the basic ones are rather accessible to all.

The old Gemstar machines were also easy. Alas, however, the greedster Henry Yuen killed them off with his love of obnoxious DRM and a proprietary format.

I can’t wait for the next crop of dedicated e-book-reading machines to come along, as well as affordable Tablet PCs, just so the former devices are multi format, an impossible dream if the Yuen mindset prevails.

Oh, and incidentally, this pro-KISS rant isn’t just theoretical. The word from Dell tech support is that my Axim PDA is indeed dying. I’m not sure. Instead I may have been done in by complications from a Microsoft security upgrade to my desktop; perhaps that’s the real reason ActiveSync has gone south. The PDA life, even for an old PC hand, just isn’t as simple as it’s cracked up to be.

And to think that so many techies in the e-book industry are haughty enough to insist on both a format war and oppressive DRM–adding those book-related annoyances to the still-abundant uncertainties of PDA technology!

Thought: I suspect that impatience with the Smartphone market is a big reason why both Palm Digital Media and Microsoft haven’t done reading software. But could PDM also have another reason–some prejudices against the Microsoft, maker of a rival operating system for PDAs (PDM or at least its parent, PalmGear, supports the Palm OS and may very possibly be hoping for a variant to thrive in the PDA-phone market)? That’s yet one more argument for publishers to push for a nonproprietary e-book format. Books and their human readers shouldn’t be caught in the middle of format and OS wars.

“Open Ink Christmas Carol” update: Perhaps Tuesday or Wedneday.

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Would William Goldman, the scriptwriter behind the movie All the President’s Men and other greats, oppose the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act? I don’t know. But maybe so, if you can extrapolate from Goldman’s theory on creative clustering. Start with a passage in his book Which Lie Did I Tell?

I think the ’90s are by far the worst decade in Hollywood history.

And then, while allowing for the fact that he just may be an old fart opposed to the new, he eventually says:

.…today, in every single art I can think of, is a time of low talent. When I took a modern novel course at Oberlin in 1951, we studied people who had published between 1900 and 1950 who had written something in the year 1927. So we read Dos Passos and Wolfe and Steinbeck and Faulkner and Hemingway and Fitzgerald–not, alas, the same today.

Notice? Goldman and his teachers paid a lot of attention to fellow 20th-century writers.

This would be in line with Goldman’s theory that great writers often come in clusters of time and geography. Yes, Dos Passos, Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway were still alive and writing in 1951 even if they’d already done their best work. They were more tightly clustered with each other at their peak time than they were clustered with 1950s-era writers–but the good vibes lingered. Goldman also notes that “Balanchine had Robbins, that Placido had Luciano, that Chekov and Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and a bunch of other Russians all walked a similar earth.”

Now, think how copyright term extension has lengthened the time it’ll take for young writers to enjoy great writers for free on the Net. “Free” does count. Young or old, writer or nonwriter, people would rather not commit themselves to books based on a few passages or even a sample chapters. Better just to have the whole works for free browsing and full-length reading. That’s the glory of shorter copyright terms and also of using the library model as much as possible with material still under copyright. Yes, we’re talking TeleRead here.

Housekeeping note: “An OeBF Christmas Carol” is still in the works, just not today. Maybe tomorrow or Monday, under the name “An Open Ink Christmas Carol”–a follow-up on our earlier Open Ink item. Meanwhile the happiest of holidays!

Typo department: Yep, caught that “tion” in the original headline.” Sorry.

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The civilian toll continues to grow in the e-book format wars. At least for now, Palm Digital Media won’t release a PalmReader for Microsoft’s Smartphones. Once again, OS-related factors are balkanizing and shrinking the potential e-book market. The lowdown from msmobiles.com:

As we all know, Microsoft smartphones don’t have Microsoft Reader (mistake of Microsoft: Microsoft decided that smartphone users are not reading eBooks), and the only serious eBook reader for Microsoft smartphone is the one from our friends from Mobipocket.com. Unfortunately some people already have several hundreds of Palm Digital Media eBooks and they would like to have PalmReader for Microsoft to read eBooks. Here is what Josh from Palm Digital Media said about this topic to MPx200.org:

We continue to evaluate the smartphone platform for Palm Reader but don’t have any immediate plans for a smartphone version. It is something that we would love to develop and release immediately as the smartphone community is expanding rapidly. But development time and cost are factors that we take into consideration as well.

Oh, well, some believe that Mobipocket, which does make a version for Smartphones, offers a better reader than either PDM or Microsoft. You can also buy Tiny Reader, which nicely reads the Project Gutenberg format and other ASCII, for Smartphones. And sooner or later, if Smartphones are a success, Palm Digital will kick in. But meanwhile an unfortunate message is still coming through: E-books are not real books, not when the whims of the software warriors count more than the satisfaction of (human) readers.

Given the connection with the Tower of eBabel, the Smartphone mess is yet another message to the Open eBook Forum to die and get out of the way. Or as a compromise, the OeBF board could promptly ditch the tainted Gold Sponsor system and arrange for proprietary-format defender Steve Potash to resign as president and for standards work to resume for real and lead to a Universal Consumer Format. Then, when new classes of hardware appeared, such as the Smartphones, e-book buyers wouldn’t suffer to the extent they do now. Nor would the e-book industry itself. Yo, Steve! What do you say? Remember, theoretically, the publishers are your company’s customers. A smooth transition to an OeBF president with a different philosophy would go a long way and turn many of your enemies into friends.

Details: Whether the “Open” eBook Forum continues or not, a new name without the Orwellian baggage of the old one would also help. So would a different executive director–ideally someone who really cares about e-books and at the same time has the right personality for trade-association work. Nick Bogaty, present director, doesn’t. Be nice to him, OeBF. Find him a job where he can happily crunch numbers for the e-book business but not interfere with the growth of those stats.

By David Rothman

“If countries agree to pass DMCA-like laws as part of a treaty,” U.S. “negotiators may offer better terms for exchanging other goods and services.” – CNET story on the acquittal of a Norwegian programmer acquitted of a DVD-related charge.

The TeleRead take: So here’s the big question. Just what trade protections for nonHollywood types are U.S. officials bargaining away in the name of DMCAism? Won’t anyone from the media investigate? Hollywood brags about the money it brings in from overseas, but, in the future, how much of that will be at the expense of other industries? And has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis? Generally I like free trade, but with so many U.S. jobs lost due to it, and with politicians not able to come up with solutions to the jobs-drain, those are not minor issues. Is it Hollywood vs. mill workers in North Carolina or Boeing hands in Seattle?

Related: Meanwhile the outflow of some U.S. programming jobs and other white-collar work goes on–and on. See White-Collar Anger.

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Here are 2003’s top stories in e-books and related areas, as picked by Jerry Justiano at Pocket PC eBooks Watch. I’ll follow up with my own list.

1. Burned Un-nobled: Barnes and Noble decision to close its ebook store.

2. Ooops She did it again: MS Update its protection. Then within a week, it was cracked again with Convert Lit 1.4.

3. Scan Scum Spam: Harry Potter 5 e-books available within days of worldwide release, thanks to the DRM buster Scanner technology.

4. Ooops: She did it again 2: Little Girl being Sued by RIAA for P2P.

5. AMazingone: Mazingo is dead.

The TeleRead take: My own top picks would be (1) evidence that OeBF president Steve Potash sabotaged the e-book standards work of this once-valuable group, which now deserves a quick mercy killing, (2) the Harry Potter piracy and the continued cracking of the Microsoft Reader format, yet more proof of the imbecility of the Draconian DRM pushed by Potash and allies, (3) the lowering of prices of e-books, A Good Thing even though we still don’t have enough of it, (4) the Supreme Court’s unfortunate ruling that Congress could keep extending copyrights, and (5) the RIAA’s war against individual file-sharers, a good “how not to” for e-book publishers.

With an apology for a little vanity, the sixth story would be an article in the Carnegie Reporter–an importance voice within the philanthropic establishment–describing TeleRead as an intriguing alternative to present business and legal models. Like me, the man who wrote it is pro copyright. We just want to see the concept modernized so it survives.

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Amos Bokros, the author of the touching story below, lives in Bradenton, Florida, and has been a TeleRead supporter for years. You can reach him at amos.bokros@verizon.net.

They’re called the VE kids, short for “Very Exceptional Students”–with a hodgepodge of learning disabilities and emotional problems. Some must take powerful drugs to control their rage, or have threatened to bring guns to school.

Not the kids you’d expect to love electronic books. But I know better as a substitute teacher in Sarasota County, Florida.

In fact, I myself am a VE child grown up, and e-books and related technology have already changed my life. I scan the books with special software and then simultaneously hear them and read them–with the computer highlighting the words. Even better, as a disabled person, I can legally download best-sellers from Bookshare.org and skip the scanning process, saving me hours and hours. Same for Project Gutenberg books–free to everyone, disabled or not. I’ve even turned into a bit of a speed demon as a reader, cruising along at up to 450 words per minute. You can think of the technology as like eyeglasses. I’d rather be able to do without it, but with it I can actually read faster than many people without my combination of attention deficit disorder, dyslexia and other challenges.

Now I take my laptop into the classroom and, at every chance, share the technology with my students.

I’ve had the joy of watching students who would rather die than have to read, being captivated by a story of Greek mythology. The students are amazed that they can read a story by themselves 20 or 30 pages long without taking a break. These same students could not or would not read a paragraph by themselves. The students are amazed that they enjoyed and comprehended what they read. I have been particularly happy that many of the most pugnacious students have found this technology a breakthrough–a way to develop both their minds and their self-esteem.

One young African American girl worried at first that her father would tell her that the technology was for “dumb people.”

“What’s dumb,” I said, “is not taking advantage of technology or anything that can help us to learn.”

Let me tell you about an incident that happened recently. I was called one morning to go to a school for students kicked out of other schools or even in trouble with the law. Another teacher and I were to teach a class of three students, and I asked if they would give me any problems.

“No,” she said. “They’ll most likely be sleeping. As long as you don’t wake the students up, they won’t bother you.”

Sure enough, when I got to the class, two of the three students were sleeping. I spoke with the other teacher in the class, and basically she explained the game we played in this school where kids come to this school because they have to and are just waiting till their 18th birthday and no longer need to be legally in school. She reassured me that we were in no danger because the really bad kids had recently been sent off to prison.

I tried talking to the one student who was awake. He apparently tried to shock me with his extracurricular stories which were not appropriate for school. I quickly gave up trying to talk with him. About a half hour later, one of the hall monitors who looked like a bouncer in a rough bar woke the students up and told them it was time to go to gym class. We walked to gym class and the two students who slept in the class room proceeded to continue to sleep during gym. There were other students from other classes in the gym. A few of them started talking with me. After a few minutes it became clear they were all also trying to shock me with all sorts of inappropriate drug and sex talk. I realized that this was going to be a wasted day, but at least I was going to be paid for it.

During a break, I went to my car and got my laptop. When I returned, I set up my laptop with my ear phones and proceeded to do some work.

One student woke up and began staring at me.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I kept tapping away on my laptop while the student watched. He started to talk with me, and we discovered we shared the same birthday and were both from Pennsylvania originally. I was happy that at least the conversation wasn’t about drugs or sex.

He looked at me and said, “I don’t like computers.”

“Why not?” I asked.

His reply was, “Well, for one thing, I can’t read good.”

I looked at him and said, “Would you like to try something?”

He said, “I guess so.”

I got up and asked him to sit in my chair, and I placed the headphones attached to my laptop on his head. I then switched text on my laptop and went to a section of short stories. I explained to him that this was a digital reading program, and that he was about to have a computer read a story to him and highlight the words as it did so. I adjusted the speed of the story and told him I could make the computer read faster or slower if he desired. I also explained that he could stop the program at any time, then resume where he’d left off. He could also have varied the pitch.

He read the story and asked, “Can I read it again?”

“Yes,” I said, and he proceeded to do so–before going on to another story.

I had him reading for about an hour.

He told me that usually when he is confronted by reading he becomes blinded by looking at a sea of words. But here he was able to concentrate on the story and able to read words which were ordinarily difficult for him to comprehend. Another student joined us as we were talking. I talked about my own problems with reading and how I suffered terrible humiliation in school because of my learning disability. He asked me how I was able to go to college if I had a reading disability. I explained that it was difficult and I had to work very hard.

I also explained until recently this type of technology was unavailable–but, had it been available when I was his age, my life might have been substantially different. I’d have spent years and years as a teacher by now rather than having to work in nursing homes and at Wal-Mart. Now scanned books had opened up a world of possibilities.

“Look,” I told both kids, “school basically sucks, but reading can be a lot of fun if you are willing to try.”

He looked at me skeptically, and frankly I wondered if I had helped him. I wrote down for him the names of Bookshare (as a source of electronic books) and TeleRead (which for years has advocated e-books for people in general–but especially for those with learning disabilities).

The school day was coming to a close and I said goodbye to my student and wished him well in his endeavors. He told me he would think about what I had introduced him to. As I left the school that day and went home, I wondered how much effect I had on any students. I hoped that may be I had made a difference in at least one student’s life. But one thing for sure: I’ve never had a more satisfying day of teaching.

I just hope that our schools can catch on to the potential of this technology and others related to electronic books. During World War II the initials “VE” stood for “Victory in Europe.” But maybe, with the right hardware and software available, they can take on another meaning for many special kids: “Victory in the Classroom.”

* * *

The TeleRead take: Needless to say, experiences like Amos’s are exactly why I’m so gung ho on the creation of a Universal Consumer Format that works well with assistive technology. How much better e-books are in many cases than the alternatives! Amos, at least, finds that books on tape require much more of his time than does a mix of synthesized speech and highlighted words. What’s more, in his opinion, books on tape don’t encourage as strong a relationship between written text and cognitive thinking.

Amos also notes the treadmill effect–the speech pulls the students along. Does this mean that read-as-you-see-highlighted-words should replace other forms of reading instruction for special students, including those in the early grades? Of course not. Some educators might even argue that synthesized speech could confuse the children without the proper inflections and other nuances. Still, what do you do when other methods have failed? If nothing else, although reading is the single most important skill in school, do we really want to condemn future Amoses to menial jobs? Better to make assistive technology available–so they can pick up knowledge in subjects ranging from history to science–or maybe even advanced calculus or networking protocols.

And who knows, maybe even people without his disabilities could experiment. The synthesis-highlight combo might even be a standard option in the future with e-book reading software and PDAs.

In case you’re curious, Amos uses Wynn Wizard to scan and read books, as well as read material from the Net. Two other possibilities are Open Book and Kurzweil 1000. Also check out some background from Benetech, the Silicon Valley nonprofit behind Bookshare.– David Rothman

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Wesley Clark’s campaign will go the open source route via the Clark Technology Corps. According to a story in Wired News, Clark’s people will “organize volunteers to write software for the Clark campaign and release their work under open-source licenses.” This follows similar efforts by Howard Dean’s operation.

Great! But Netfolks shouldn’t let pols’ actual tech toys serve as a distraction. At least based on my previous efforts, I’ve found the Clark campaign to be rather closed-sourced when it comes to discussion of matters like the DMCA and copyright term extension. I’d also like to see some top-secret information on the Clark site–like the names and backgrounds of his top advisors on various subjects. Contact information for them would help, too. And if Clark can allow posters to comment on his various policy initiatives and ask questions, with some of this interactivity happening on the same pages where the initiatives are laid out, that would help, too. Wonder if the open source campaignware could allow this. Technically it’s possible, natch. But how about politically?

No anti-Clark feelings beyond the usual concerns. I’ve criticized Governor Blogger (aka Howard Dean) and haven’t exactly been easy on John Edwards, about whom I’ve raised questions about donations from Hollywood. Furthermore, the open source campaignware is a start. Let’s just see if it can reflect more than a top-down approach to policy creation. No, pols and advisors should not constantly constantly poll supporters on policy matters, but they should at least encourage and participate in online discussion beyond the now-familiar blog act or board devoted to “How to recruit soccer moms.”

On a Clark site, the Tech Corps page says: “Democracy cannot function without openness and transparency. Internet Democracy is no different.” Exactly! Perhaps policy-creationware can be added to the list of the Corps’ projects. Meanwhile, for an interesting example of grassroots activism on behalf of Clark, check out the Clarkbot developed by Rick Heller.

Finally, here are some details from Wired News about Dean and open source:

Clark’s effort is similar to an initiative by rival Howard Dean’s campaign, which has operated an open-source software community called DeanSpace since late May.

Dean technology staffers said they welcomed Clark’s open-source initiative.

“We both have the same exact problem: We need to mobilize our grass-roots base. There are vendors who have tools that help, but the complete toolkit doesn’t exist. The pieces are out there, but there’s no solution,” said Zack Rosen, a Dean technology developer involved with DeanSpace.

Needless to say, Dean, too, and every other candidate, could be more open about the policy creation process. I’ve simply focused on Clark as my example of the day.

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Amos Bokros, a teacher in Bradenton, Florida, is an e-book booster who, though bright, must cope with serious learning disabilities. I’m going to let Amos tell his story in a post that should be up by late tonight and maybe before then. No holiday angles exist here but the most important of all: Amos’s eagerness to share his enthusiasm with the children who could most benefit from it. The already-previewed “OeBF Christmas Carol” will appear later this week. Meanwhile, happiest of holidays to all our readers!

Housekeeping: I’ve made a number of tweaks to Post-OeBF: Two replacement groups to drive up e-book sales–and help the world along the way. If you missed it because of the holidays, check it out.

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Have you ever checked out a paper library book and smelled the smoke from a previous reader? Maybe you want to try e-books instead. Roy Lewis posted the following this week to the eBook Community list:

I just picked up a copy of Welcome to Fred by Brad Whittington on the new books shelf at my local public library. The book seems like an interesting title and book, but the copy I picked off the physically stinks like old smoke. When I read a book on my GEB2150 or my REB1100 it smells like me or maybe warm battery or CPU but not the nasty smell of old smoke. I was a former smoker and am not normally offended by smokers, but some of the books that get turned into the local public library should really promote e-books.

I did find it on Fictionwise and will at least read the first chapter in ebook form. Then I may force myself to read chapter 2-30 on stinky paper, or I may even break down and purchase the Mobipocket version, but probably not–because I do not like to read books on my PC and do not have a Palm with a big enough screen for me to see.

The TeleRead take: Hey, Roy, at least it wasn’t anthrax.

Reminder: As much as I hate the DRM practices of certain e-book distributors offering library books, that might be one way to catch up with the right e-book in certain instances. Meanwhile I guess the “smokeless” angle is one more item to add to the arguments for a well-stocked national digital library system.

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U.S. schools are crying out for up-to-date textbooks, and the kids are relying more and more on the Internet as a research tool. Yet a well-stocked national digital library system is but a dream right now. Meanwhile in India, in Latin America, in Africa, university students line up for scarce copies of paper library books. Oh, and don’t forget another little detail: E-book sales are a disgraceful $10-$12 million a year, a fraction of Tom Clancy’s typical annual income. Ten million is just speck of a speck of the tens of billions of the yearly revenue from p-books. Can’t someone connect the dots and truly look ahead to the future?

Despite a very real need for the wares of the e-book industry, the Open eBook Forum has blown the job badly because of its focus on the immediate needs of Microsoft, Adobe, Palm Digital Media and OverDrive, its main sponsors. In fact, the Forum can’t even serve them well. The message isn’t getting through. For example: E-books are actually rather readable now, on affordable PDAs with ClearType-style technology and good reader programs. And better e-book hardware is on the way. But tell that to the techies posting on Slashdot. Even some of them seem to think that you must read e-books on a desktop or make do with reader-hostile dreck in the Adobe vein. Whoops. Bad example–since Adobe is an OeBF Gold Sponsor, not just a mere member. Can one spell c-o-n-f-l-i-c-t o-f i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t, especially when OeBF president Steve Potash runs a format-conversion operation as one of his business activities as OverDrive boss and won’t dare raze the Tower of eBabel?

As the Caveat Lector blog of a former OverDrive employee has wittingly or unwittingly suggested, Potash sabotaged the “open” standards efforts of his supposed “standards” organization–by aggressively neglecting a key committee.

“Shortly after I started work at OverDrive, I heard Steve speak at an OEBF plenary,” writes Dorothea Salo. “His attitude toward the OEBPS was that the OEBF had already done the standards thing, wrung what there was to wring from it—and it was time to Move On to more fun and exciting things. Public relations, mostly. And trade-org stuff, whatever it is that trade orgs do (I’ve never been sure). Hardly coincidence that PubStruct withered inside the next year.” Actually, living in Alexandria, VA, one of the trade association capitals of the cosmos, I’m rather certain what competent trade associations and PR outfits do. Evaluated as either, the OeBF is now about on par with Potash as an ethicist–an observation I’ll document below. Simply put, then, a formerly valuable group is now awesomely worthless for the most part if you judge it by its own description as the “International Trade and Standards Organization for the eBook Industry.” Like Nuvomedia and Softbook, the once-promising young companies that ex-Gemstar CEO Henry Yuen bought up and compromised to promote an overly proprietary approach that ultimately killed the Gemstar e-book readers, the OeBF has suffered–to the point where it is beyond fixing and deserves to be put out of its misery. An impossible dream? Not necessarily, as I’ll show later on with an analysis of the makeup of the OeBF’s board.

So here is a proposal to replace the failed OeBF with two groups to get e-books on the right track: the International eBook Association and the related eBook Standards Organization. I’ll at least pay OeBF the compliment of saying the effectiveness of an e-book trade association–ideally a replacement group or groups!–is worth worrying about. Not everyone would agree. That’s how cynical the OeBF has made e-bookers at the expense of the industry’s future.

The just-mentioned IEA would do e-book-related promotion, lobbying and training, among other activities. It would be the larger organization by far and would represent the interests of true book people such as publishers, librarians and e-bookstores. The book business, not a software oligarchy, would be the most influential sources of cash. In return, book people would get an organization far more respectful of their needs than the present OeBF–dominated by companies keen on pushing their pet formats and operating systems. ESO, the standards group, would receive long-term funding from IEA and tap the brains of those of the present OeBF techies who believed in a standard consumer-level format. It would not be a salesy organization. But the effect would be the same. E-books will fare better when a Universal Consumer Format is in place.

I know. People will worry that the book business won’t cough up. No guarantees here! But individual publishing conglomerates can each spend many millions to promote just one season’s crop of best-sellers. Outfits like the Association of American Publishers might show some new generosity if e-book boosters were more effective and picked up lessons from the AAP itself. Too, if properly educated, the American Library Association might kick in eventually. Even some of the OeBF’s present sponsors from the software industry might be more willing to be generous if they knew that a different approach would help move e-books better than the present organization has. But I’d rather see their contributions capped to prevent more bullying. We already know what happens when Microsoft and Adobe and the others call the shots. Even Jon Noring, the eBook Community List moderator who says the OeBF’s present leadership is “fine,” admits that the group should learn to live with sources of “untainted” revenue. “The current system,” he wrote on Wednesday with rather apparent understatement, “is still skewed a little too heavily toward the full members.”

The trade association side: Why we should replace the OeBF with IEA

Instead of a short-sighted approach focused so much on a small gang of Gold Sponsors, how about a real trade association to help e-book publishers as a whole? That’s what IEA would be. As a promoter of e-books, the present OeBF is inept to the point of risibility. Visited the home page lately? The damn thing is a parody of itself. You don’t see little kids curled up with a PDA or Tablet PC and reading e-books. Instead you see this obnoxious graphic at the top of the page, flashing out the logos of the four main sponsors (actually I’ll share the treat via the reproduction within this paragraph). You also see a PRish series of links where the OeBF often boasts about such-and-such companies joining. Some of that within bounds is fine, but OeBF overdoes it. This is greed-is-good territory. Who cares what e-books can do for the world? Who cares about the industry? Gotta focus on the people forking over the money!

Compare the OeBF’s site to that of the Association of American Publishers. As I write this, the AAP site is announcing a campaign to boost library funding, and there’s a great link to a site called Get Caught Reading, which AAP and the Magazine Publishers Association sponsor. GCR, in turn, features posters of Whoopi Goldberg and other celebrities reading, as well as information on literacy and the importance of reading aloud to kids. Yes, the AAP’s Web efforts could be still better, and, yes, I’d disagree with the AAP people on issues like copyright-term-extension and whatever; but give ‘em credit–they’re looking beyond the immediate needs of the organization and suggesting that books can make a difference on Planet Earth.

But what about the people of OeBF compared to those of the AAP? I like Nick Bogaty, the OeBF executive director, who means well, but, based on our conversations, he strikes me as more of a bean-counter than a people person or passionate e-book person. At the urging of a mysterious stranger, Nick did contact me out of the blue some months ago because I was reputed to know something about e-books. No problem! But then Nick promptly warned me that I would learn much less about the efforts of the OeBF unless I agreed to go off record, an option I declined. Huh? The Open eBook Forum. What was next? A blood oath? Was the OeBF really an extension of the Mafia or a law firm?

Well, actually, yes in a sense. Steve Potash, the OeBF president and boss man at OverDrive, is a lawyer by background, and that approach seems to suffuse and suffocate OeBF’s relations with the rest of the world. Nick himself is far too eager to play attorney as shown by his obvious eagerness to co-opt me with dialogue in the vein of, “Nice to meet you. Care to give me an oral NDA so I can bore you with stupid details that no one will really care about anyway?”

By contrast, if Nick had been a recruiter from the AAP, he might very well have rattled off a list of the association’s projects in the Real World and asked if TeleRead might fit into one. Suppose the OeBF or a nonprofit spin-off eligible for foundation money had an e-book demo project in an urban or rural school? Or a well-done project with a university to investigate and improve the usability of e-books? Or one to see why so many librarians felt uncomfortable about e-books–and to do something about it? Or, gasp, eventually a project to lobby for a well-stocked national digital library system with fair compensation for publishers, writers and other content-providers–and provisions for smoothly integrating e-books into schools and libraries? Or maybe a project to show how well e-books could go together with students’ blogging (just the ticket for sharing book reports to demonstrate an understanding of the material)? Not too bad for market development, especially the promotion of books among Net-mindd kids, eh?

Do-gooder activities like those wouldn’t just excite me. They also might help draw money from the book industry. In fact, IEA and the AAP might even work together with the ALA and educational groups in these areas, with the emphasis on the kids’ welfare, as opposed to OeBF-style huckstery. But, of course, the present OeBF isn’t dynamic or imaginative enough to attract the money or interest from the right people, and somehow I just can’t see Nick getting that fired up about e-books for fifth graders. I wonder if he even reads them himself (I don’t know).

Compare Nick to the AAP’s executive director, Pat Schroeder, who has authored at least two paper books and evinces constant enthusiasm about the medium. Similarly Ms. Schroeder is out there meetin’ and greetin’ and lobbyin’. I assume Nick does the trade association act and at meetings shakes his quota of hands. But the fervor just isn’t there. Why isn’t a booster like Glenn “eBookWeb” Sanders or Kelly “KnowBetter.com” Ford in charge of OeBF rather than Nick–a cautious, Prufrockian type in a business context?

This Prufrockian mindset came through abundantly after Margot Milner, an ardent e-book supporter in France, contacted Nick on her own about certain taxes that favored p-books over e-books. You’d think Nick would have rejoiced at this chance to start up a grassroots campaign with people like Margot pitching in for free. No huge amount of vision needed from Nick or from Steve Potash. Instead, however, Nick cranked out an e-mail to Margot saying that the OeBF doesn’t lobby as a matter of policy. Any lack-of-resources excuse just won’t cut it. Long term, OeBF could set up a lobbying subsidiary and encourage Margo-type folks to do grassroots-style efforts on the cheap. Short term, if nothing else, Nick could have investigated the matter further and done a press release, which would have cost next to nothing. Rather Nick merely suggested that Margot write the AAP. He apparently didn’t act further even though bad taxes could cost the e-book business billions over the years. And this is the outfit that’s supposed to promote the industry? Far from blaming Nick alone, I detect the hand of Steve Potash, ever the lawyer, in the group’s non-lobbying policy.

Oh, but the matter didn’t end there. After the TeleRead Web Log published the bland letter Margot received, Nick called me up to complain. Huh? All the letter did was to say that as a matter of policy, the OeBF wouldn’t lobby. No inner secrets revealed. But apparently even the OeBF’s lobbying policy or nonlobbying policy is not fit for openness. Nick was horrified that Margot had contacted him without mentioning her interest in TeleRead. He demanded a list of regular contributors to the TeleRead site so he could guard against such disturbing disclosures. Intimidation? Maybe, but in my mind the operative word was, “Pathetic.” Poor Nick. Margot had contacted him on her own, and beyond that, why should anyone have to resort to stealth to find out about policy? But at the OeBF, paranoia won out.

By contrast Ed McCoyd, an OeBF board member who’s the AAP’s director of digital policy, couldn’t have been more helpful to Margo and me. He sent Margot a quick reply promising to look into the tax issue, and later followed through with us by e-mailing a link to material from a UK publishers association. Best of all, when I contacted him, he expressed interest in working with us on a grassroots campaign against discriminatory taxes on e-books. That was wholly consistent with the AAP’s efforts to encourage a grassroots interest in library funding. Ed saw us as potential allies on the tax issue rather than as menaces (even if we might disagree with him on other matters). Perhaps someday Ed and I will be campaigning together for meaningful federal funding for e-books in libraries.

Besides lobbying, a grownup trade association could also be active in areas ranging from technical awards (with independent judges), professional development (including related areas such as e-books within library and information science) and general enlightenment of members and the population at large. The present OeBF is anti-enlightenment. It’s gone along with Draconian DRM even though a survey from KnowBetter.com and eBook Web has amply documented the downside. Instead of pandering to the prejudices of certain uninformed publishers, the way OeBF has done under Steve Potash, the IEA could encourage the use DRM Lite (or in some cases no DRM).

I could go on with other specifics, but I think the point is clear. The AAP is a positive example among trade associations; the OeBF, a negative one. Best to start all over in this trade-assocation area and hire an AAP-style executive director who’ll evangelize and mean it. The OeBF staff is essentially just the executive director, as far as I know. I suspect Nick doesn’t even have a full-fledged office operation and is running the group from home. So we’re really not talking about that much to preserve here.

The big area where Nick seems to be comfortable is numbers. True, the statistics are sketchy and the related press releases are rather awkward, given the pathetic numbers of the industry. I’m not even sure if there’s a list of best-selling titles, which at least would give Nick’s efforts a little more flair than they have now. Still, Nick and the OeBF have made at least some contributions here, and perhaps this could continue with Nick and his statistical efforts farmed out either to the AAP, the Book Industry Study Group, or another organization. I’d also love to see him treated well with a generous check if OeBF does fold and somehow he can’t be placed. I think he can. He may be a great stats guy, but eve with Steve pulling Nick’s strings, this guy just would not be the best choice as OeBF’s director. Remember the real goal of a trade association, not to come up with the best collection of revenue stats but rather to grow those numbers.

While e-books have won new popularity in recent months–partly because the tech is better and publishers are more sensible about prices–the growth rate is far, far below what it could be with an effective trade association.

One final detail about IEA: Because e-books are such creatures of the Net and because the Net does not respect geography very well, I believe that IEA should be an international group from the start–with participation not just from the AAP but also similar groups outside the United States. That also would broaden the revenue base. Too, keep mind that as much as we need e-books in the States, there’s infinitely more need outside the U.S., especially in developing countries. The real issue for people in Somaliland or Bangladesh isn’t, “Oh, how many dots per square inch will screens display?” Instead it’s: “What books can you get us that we could never see on paper?” Here’s to global market development! The cost of the hardware and software and Net connections will be coming down dramatically, and it’s important for the book industry to prepare. Otherwise count on young Somalis and Bangladeshis growing up accustomed to playing videogames and visting Web sites, but not to reading books, especially those in text, the best for cultivating sustained thought.

The standards side: The eBook Standards Organization

I’m not going to devote as much space to the standards issue because I’ve written so much about it earlier. I’ll start with the most obvious matter:

Let’s all pity the OeBF standards people. They worry about a Catch 22. They’ve got Microsoft, Adobe, Palm Digital Media and OverDrive breathing down their necks not to get too serious about standards, at least not consumer-level standards. Meanwhile, as a HarperCollins executive and countless others have observed, the format war is driving away potential customers for e-books. What to do? My answer is simple. If the big software boys won’t let the standards people do their jobs, then so be it. Shut down the OeBF, which I’d like to see happen anyway since it sucks resources from superior alternatives. Then let the real brains behind the standards pick up their toys and move on to a new group or set up their own standards organization. I myself would prefer that they work with the IEA to establish the eBook Standards Organization. If the big software companies don’t want to participate–no ESP powers claimed here, I can only guess–then so be it. Remember the real customers for standards: the publishers, distributors, librarians and other book people.

Speaking of various interests, my own preference would be for the standards-setters to have no current corporate ties within the industry, but that might not be possible, given the intense specialization. Besides, they could be augmented with more people from other stakeholders–the library community, for example. Also, for specialists to participate in actual creation of standards, as opposed to simply offering advice from the sidelines, they would have to advocate or at least tolerate the existence of meaningful consumer-level format standards. Otherwise what’s the point?

Meanwhile here are some other thoughts about ESO’s membership and the rest:

–Members. You can count on the standards community, mostly techies, to have a different mentality from people active on the trade association side, who’ll care far more about people-ish issues. That’s the built-in problem with the OeBF. Even with Steve Potash playing down the standards work, it’s been one more distraction from the classic trade association activities that the OeBF handles so badly. Hence the usefulness of two different groups–one for e-book promo and one for standards.

–Boards. Let’s have some overlap, though only the right amount. ESO needs to be responsive to the long-term needs of IEA members, but not be a wimpy slave to their daily concerns.

–Money. The IEA can fund the ESO. Given the OeBF’s debacles so far in the areas of standards and trade-association activities alike, I myself might be tight with the purse strings right now if I were the book industry. Why spend too much on a group more concerned with the needs of big software vendors? As with the board composition, a balance should be struck to assure long-term responsiveness without forcing the IEA to pander to short-term interests. If nothing else, since the most influential funders would come from the book community, not the software one, there would not be the standards-corrupting conflicts that have afflicted the OeBF. Well, maybe some would remain. But the intensity would not be as great. Last I knew, Random House did not have an operating system to preserve and protect.

–Pay for ESO standards-setters. Needed! We’re talking bottom line here. Let’s get a well-done Universal Consumer Format out ASAP. Compensation would be a token of the value of e-books sales lost because of the Tower of eBabel. As I’ve said, a HarperCollins executive has been most explicit in blaming the format zoo for disrupting e-book sales. Make the connection between paying the standards setters and getting the standards out promptly, and the money may well materialize. Perhaps I’m ahead of my time. But for what it’s worth, I’ll keep plugging this Better Way.

–General morality compared to the OeBF. I agree with Dorothea Salo that no standards creations process can be absolutely pure (see Parts I, II and III of her comments on the OeBF and my uppity opinions). But really, Dorothea, the approach I’ve described would be so much better than letting the big software companies bully the other stakeholders. OeBF’s conflicts of interest have been rather over the top–given the stark contrast between the group’s originally announced purpose (with a standard consumer format high on the list) and its performance under Steve Potash and his allies. No accusations of broken laws, including Gemstar-style SEC questions! But a corruption of the OeBF’s original mission? You betcha! I’m pleased to see Dorothea admit that the present OeBF isn’t the best place for e-book standards–her Part III suggests other places. I myself believe that some connections between a trade association and a standards body would be fine–but not in the tacky way that the OeBF has addressed this issue. Simply put, Steve Potash owes e-bookers a big apology for retooling the OeBF as a PR agency for him and his corporate friends (as the horrid blinking logos at the top of the group’s home page makes clear). Meanwhile, mindful that Dorothea has been kicking around Potash, her ex-employer, for years, I owe her an apology for encroaching on her territory. Sorry, Dorothea. It will happen again. Seriously, I look forward to Dorothea’s further ideas on the e-book group issue–with many of which I may actually agree.

–’Tude toward DRM. Nonproprietary! ESO members should ignore the malarkey from Palm Digital Media and others with a selfish interest in the matter. Indeed, within the encryption area, an important part of DRM, top experts say that a nonproprietary approach could be safer since the tires can be kicked by a number of different people and companies. Let me also add that with publishers and librarians teaming up in IEA to magnifying their lobbying power, there’s more chance of decent funding in the future for digital libraries. That in turn would not end but would reduce the need for DRM. I myself can envision DRM Lite–convenient for users but strong enough to keep honest people from slipping–in such contexts as file sharing.

–Last-but-not-least stuff. The ESA, along with the ESO, should cooperate closely with advocates for the disabled, especially the Daisy Consortium’s George Kerscher, the present chair of the OeBF, who, alas, does not run it day to day. I totally agree with a wise observation from Dorothea: “On the book side, there’s the accessibility people, and the nice state legislators who are starting to require that textbook publishers use e-text and electronic production methods to make their wares accessible for the visually-impaired. I don’t have the whole story here—but it sure does bear watching. If we can get textbooks, which are some of the hardest book-production jobs known to man, made into markup, we can bloody well do anything.” Some months ago, I myself commented on the hope we might find in the feds’ accessibility-related efforts–a possible path, as I and others saw it, to a Universal Consumer Format. Meanwhile, speaking of accessibility, I just wish that the Adobe and Microsoft readers were not so often DRMed to the point where speech synthesizers didn’t work. Far from advocating the weakening of the influence of George Kerscher in the reborn organizations, I’d like to see it strenghtened.

Some of the items on the list above may shock denizens of the cozy little world of standard-setters within e-bookdom; but it is time to do things differently. The same applies to the trade association functions of the OeBF.

Perhaps with all the deservedly negative publicity, Steve Potash will suddenly seem to humor the standards-setters, as part of his tacky PR, but I’ll remain very skeptical about his intentions. Dorothea Salo’s blog has summed up the matter nicely in the standards area: “The question becomes, then, whether the OEBF is a suitable venue for continuing development of electronic-book specifications. Frankly? No.”

What’s neat is that the OeBF’s board members just might be able to do their mercy killing very quickly or at least might be able to do it, period. Just look at the composition of the board of directors. You’ll see certain people whose interests Potash has harmed, but who’ve given him the benefit of the doubt up to now because of the money from him and his big software buddies. The seven members are George Kerscher of the Daisy Consortium (a pro-access group that loves open standards); Amanda Kimmel of Random House (not sure if she’s pro- or anti-open standards at the consumer level); Edward McCoyd of the Association of American Publishers (I suspect he’d be in favor of a universal consumer format, and if nothing else, his group has been far more enlightened than Potash on the DRM issue, if a joint AAP-ALA study is any indication); Steve Potash himself (pro-closed!); Tom Prehn, either now or formerly with Adobe Systems (pro-closed!); Mike Seagroves, who I suspect isn’t with a Palm-related company (though I’ll assume that slot is pro-closed); and Rick Weingarten of the American Library Association (pro-open!). Count ‘em. I don’t know what the OeBF’s rules say; but suppose a majority vote would be enough to close down shop. Well, then, if the four publishing-related members side with Kerscher and the ALA, the OeBF can obligingly fade away to make room for a trade association and related standards group to serve true book people–and along the way undo the cynicism that the OeBF has created within and about the e-book business. The same four people can form the core of the board of the IEA and work toward the rapid establishment of the ESA, picking up those techies from the OeBF who genuinely support open standards. Bottom line? Continuity and a chance to rid fhe e-book world of a powerful stench.

Update, 3:30 a.m., Dec. 26: Have done many tweaks to pick up the Salo tidbits and other fun stuff. Also, in the first paragraph, I’ve included a link to a Pew report on students’ Net usage. Just remember, the report is several years old and if anything the numbers are higher.

By David Rothman

KnowBetter.com has compiled a handy list for last-minute shoppers. Hey, suits the medium! Remember, too, the public domain possibilities available free via Project Gutenberg, 10,000 eBooks and the Black Mask e-store. Some suggestions from KnowBetter: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, On The Twelfth Day Of Hanukkah, My Muses Gave To Me by Steven David Horwich, and The e Before Christmas by Matthew Beaumont.