The OpenReader Consortium was announced yesterday as an alternative to the Tower of eBabel.

Going beyond e-books alone to include media such as magazines and newspapers, this digital-publications reading system will be cross platform and open source.

OpenReader's Universal Consumer Format will be a welcome contrast to "VHS-vs.-Beta times ten" and could spell massive relief for consumers, said Jon Noring, the veteran e-book format expert who has been coordinating the early planning.

Quality typography

Significantly, Michael Day of YesLogic, one of the world's leading CSS experts, dedicated to precise rendering of text, is among those involved with the OpenReader project.

In other words, OpenReader will emphasize not just consumer convenience but also high-quality typography so important to leading publishers as well as image-minded corporations in other areas of business. Present e-book products tend to fall rather short of print standards.

Building on the OeBF's own standards

"This is intended to become the reading format standard of the future," says Noring, an invited expert for the Open eBook Forum as well as the moderator of the eBook Community list. OpenReader is not part of the OeBF but will build on the OeBF's production-level standards.

The resultant consumer format is to follow the principles outlined in a Noring article last year on the eBookWeb site--calling for the Universal Consumer Format.

An invitation to join the OpenReader Consortium

A statement on OpenReader is on the OpenReader home page. This project is now in the preliminary assessment and design stage, which is mostly finished. Individuals and companies interested in seeing what the OpenReader Consortium is all about, and possibly joining the effort, should contact Jon Noring directly at jon@noring.name. In addition, OpenReader should be of interest to schools, libraries, government agencies and advocates of people with disabilties. With XML-related technology, OpenReader will work especially well with speech synthesis and otherwise promote accessibility.

This is a good cause. In line with my frequent criticism of the Tower of eBabel, I'm participating. The Open eBook Forum has made it clear it does not want to do a Universal Consumer Format despite all the promises made at a 1998 e-book conference. At the same time some of the proprietary formatters have challenged me to do something constructive for the industry rather than just writing of the shortcomings of the present approach. Pleased to oblige.

Could spur hardware and e-book sales and save many millions

Consider all the millions that the format wars have cost in sales of e-books and related hardware--not to mention the burden on schools and libraries, which would rather not cope with "VHS vs. Beta times ten." The Tower of eBabel is one reason why global e-book sales are a pathetic $20-$30 million a year, or less than the typical annual income of Tom Clancy. "There was a format war," Reuters has quoted David Steinberger, HarperCollins president of corporate strategy and international. "They compete and are not compatible. That creates resistance."

Beyond that, imagine all direct savings that an open format could offer publishers and retailers alike. The idea won't be to end all the proprietary formats immediately but let the marketplace decide. If history repeats itself, open standards will prevail--just as the Internet has dwarfed the likes of CompuServe.

While Jon is hardly the biggest advocate of Digital Rights Management, the OpenReader Consortium will address such issues by encouraging the development of a nonproprietary DRM Lite, as we call it. The goal won't be an uncrackable system, but rather to create a sensible balance between intellectual property protection and convenience of consumers. Present forms of DRM are actually harming the e-book industry by making e-books cumbersome to use. Many publishers, including Jon's Blue Glass Publishing, find they fare much better without DRM. Just the same, a nonproprietary DRM option will be available for publishers who want protection.

If we didn't do OpenReader

Even without our going ahead with OpenReader, e-bookdom would eventually get standardization. Trouble is, it probably would be standardization built around the products of one giant company--Microsoft or Adobe. By contrast, OpenReader offers an opportunity for the evolution of a publication format to be influenced by many organizations in the private and public sectors, without the countless legal and archival complications that could arise in the future with just one company in control.

Without a consortium approach and a UCF, a single corporation would be able to change a format on a whim. With a jointly created UCF, however, the evolution should be far, far more predictable so that software companies can confidently develop and market different readers, competing on such features as ease of use. Just why should they squander so many R&D dollars on development of clashing formats, when a consortium approach would cost individual corporations and independent programmers less and lead to better results?

Moreover, with sophisticated standards in place, higher typographical standards should be easier to attain--a benefit to publishers of all kinds, not just book publishers.

Beyond publishing, the possibility exists that an OpenReader format could become an alternative to the Adobe-controlled Portable Document Format in business and industry. An "open" version of PDF offers fewer features than the proprietary flavor and is an excellent illustration of the need for the main format to be open from the start.

Related: A recording of Jon's interview yesterday on eBookworm. Also: Feds help create PDF archiving standard, from Government Computer News, via LISNews.
posted by David Rothman at 1:40 AM | permanent link

Reminder: Jon Noring will be the guest on eBookworm today at 3 p.m Central Daylight Time.
posted by David Rothman at 11:45 AM | permanent link

One of the arguments against public libraries, physical or digital, is that taxpayers are paying for plenty of content that they don't use. One counter-argument would be that in terms of greater public enlightenment, the sacrifices are more than worth it. But now there's another point to make. How about all the crap that the private sector forces you to finance--especially cable TV dreck? Check out FCC Asked To Examine A la Carte Cable TV in the Washington Post.
posted by David Rothman at 9:19 AM | permanent link

David Faucheux is really the best person to speak out on Yahoo and the blind. So I'll just point you to the moving and cogent items that David recorded for his Blind Chance audio blog--rather than tackling Yahoo in particular, as I'd thought I would. Meanwhile I appreciate the link that LISNews made to our overview of David's blogging--see below. Also read David's own artice from Interface, an ALA magazine--Is There a Place for Us? Toward the Full Inclusion of Blind and Other Librarians with Disabilities?

By David Rothman

Thanks to audio blogging technology, the blind aren't just able to keep up with blogs more easily--they can also start their own, as one blind librarian did last week.

Over at the Mid-Illinois Talking Books Center, Director Lori Bell and Tom Peters have begun a useful blind-related service called DTBDaily, which will wrap up news from the world of digital talking books and use Blogger's new audio capabilities now being offered for free.

Blind Chance

Lori and Tom are sighted. David Faucheux, however, is an MLIS who's been blind since childhood. But that hasn't prevented him from starting an audio blog called Blind Chance which provides librarians with an inside look at the world of the blind. David's "Blind Chance" is about books, the Net, libraries and the challenges of his life. The URL is http://www.teleread.org/blind -- with a shortcut available as http://www.blindchance.org.

Accessibility experts and other librarians would do well to listen to Yahoo, Part I: An Audio Maze for Blind?, Yahoo, Part II: Beyond the Maze, Lesson for Librarians: 'You know about biology, I know about being blind', and 'Blind like me': Try Web surfing with accessibility software and a blindfold.

Off-line issues--even guide-dog etiquette

Plus, David will also discuss off-line accessibility and other use issues and already has recorded Seeing eye dog etiquette--and a few recollections of Nader. That's the late, great yellow Lab rather than the presidential candidate.

In addition David will depart from some of his core topics to give people some insights on what life is like in special areas of interest for him. Check out Gaming the shows: How to be a (Blind) Millionaire?.

Welcomes librarians' questions

David, who holds his MLIS degree from Louisiana State University and lives in Lafayette, LA, welcomes questions from librarians that he can address in the blog. You can email him at triviaguy@bellsouth.net (though he may not answer immediately since he'll be out of town).

I helped David get going with his blog and am now helping him with headlines and the usual exchange of ideas between friends. Other than that, the rest is his. He can add to the blog on his own whenever he wants, just by dialing into a Blogger phone number and doing his recording. No computer use is necessary to do the recordings and have the material posted online. David can hear his entries and re-record if he wants. I add the headlines later through the new Blogger interface. What's more, through My.Yahoo.com, which I've customized for David and will tweak further, he can keep up with his past entries.

Start of a trend?

Not every blind person will want to start a blog. But for those with something to say, it could even be a life-changer, a way of reaching out to the world and demonstrating one's talents. For example, David is showing off his knack for book reviews and overall enthusiasm for books, and perhaps a savvy library or school system will see the potential here. What's more, audio blogs should be yet another way for the blind and visually impaired to build online communities. You can bet that David is eager to link to the blogs of blind people with similar interests. Let's hope that in the future the blind can originate more and more blind-oriented content, with sighted people simply acting as facilitators in many cases (hiring more blind people as librarians wouldn't be such a bad idea in that regard!).

Although "Blind Chance" is starting out as a once-a-week blog, David may post more often than that. He wanted to begin with enough items to make his blog worth the effort for people to check out.

RSS promising for blind people, too, not just sighted

Finally, yes, Blind Chance has an RSS feed at http://www.teleread.org/blind/rss.xml . That's how we can get David's entries displayed in My.Yahoo.com, which can pick up feeds. David is quite gung ho on RSS as a time-saver and enjoys reading items from LISNews, among other publications. In the future, perhaps Yahoo can offer the blind a streamlined version of its RSS-aggregator service. Due to the time it takes to navigate with speech synthesizers, blind people suffer from ad clutter even more than we sighted people do.
posted by David Rothman at 8:20 AM | permanent link

Oil price rises have ramifications for e-books. With online e-books, you don't have to go to the bookstore or library as often in your Honda or dino of an SUV. Too, if you order an e-book from Amazon, fuel-related shipping costs are more or less nonexistent. It's always cheaper to move around electrons than atoms.

On the negative, the higher prices will mean less money for buying e-book gizmos or often-overpriced commercial titles. Now, of all times, is when the e-book biz should focus on reducing the costs of middlemen.
posted by David Rothman at 3:29 PM | permanent link

You can now download the May 1 version of Marian Dworaczek's Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information along with accompanying instructions and a bibliography.

(Thanks, Alev.)
posted by David Rothman at 2:49 PM | permanent link

Later today or tomorrow we'll be updating you on the neat things that David Faucheux is up to with Blind Chance, his audio blog. Coming very soon in Blind Chance: Discussion of Yahoo's accessibilty problems for people relying on speech synthesizers.

Related: Blind Chance Blog launches, an item in DTBdaily, a blog devoted to digital talking books. DTBdaily praises David as "a fascinating and well-read librarian."
posted by David Rothman at 7:40 AM | permanent link

Here at TeleRead, we're pretty gung ho on publishers' property rights. If OverDrive's Content Reserve unit owes you money, we want publish your story. We're talking squeaky wheels here. After Ed Howdershelt of Abintra Press spoke out on the eBook Community list and I quoted him here, the money came.

Is it certain this tactic will work for you? No telling. Publishers such as Jon Noring are still waiting for their money. Still, it won't hurt to speak up. All OverDrive can to is threaten to send you to the back of the line for speaking out--in which case we'd like to know.

Reminder of our goal

We'd like OverDrive to be open with publishers and their authors. If because of business mistakes, OverDrive can't pay now, then Steve Potash and friends should fess up ASAP. Most publishers would understand and work with him. We all make mistakes, and frankly, we'd rather see OverDrive survive since its death would not be good for the e-book industry.

But to keep stonewalling tiny publishers--whose own existences are often precarious? That's just plain wrong. Steve should stop acting like a lawyer and reach out to the e-book community with the full story of OverDrive's financial condition. While bragging about growing revenues, he has refused to disclose profits or losses.

Libraries also have a stake in this. If they're to rely on OverDrive to build their e-book collections, they need to know that the company will be around.

Meanwhile Steve would do well to step down as president of the Open eBook Forum to focus on his troubled business.
posted by David Rothman at 7:16 AM | permanent link

Thank goodness we don't have the piracy problem in a major way in the book business. With a smaller percentage of kids reading books recreationally than in the past and even Harry Potter sales have been short of expectations, we're safer than ever. Neat scenario, huh? Demand for the product falls, so it isn't quite as stealable as it would have been formerly, or compared to, say, music.

Of course, we can thank the DRM Mafia and Tower of eBabel advocates for contributing to protection within the e-book side of the industry. Although e-books are growing, they're still a speck of the book business as a whole. What a relief. Piracy protection should come ahead of a tiny little detail like revenue.

The pols and the deadbeat distributor

Within the e-book area, the publishers seem to have more to fear from a deadbeat distributor than from piracy. Isn't that great? Thank you, Steve. Presumably, copyright hawks and morality defenders like Lamar Smith and Howard Berman will be understanding and not pass laws to toss you into the slammer.

Impolite question: When will the OeBF hold its presidential election? Or, behind our backs, has the OeBF quietly re-elected as president the CEO of a deadbeat distributor? Probably not. But with the OeBF, you never know.
posted by David Rothman at 6:09 AM | permanent link

Microsoft has royally screwed up the Tablet PC effort by not promoting consumer-friendly e-book standards and by inflicting Draconian DRM on readers. E-books could be a great driver of Tablet PC sales. We've said this before, and now come some relevant observations in John Stafford's Next America blog. He isn't writing about DRM and the rest but does give us a clue of the potential the Tablet PC holds out for e-books.

He loves the Fujitsu T3010, which he bought for his wife, because it's light and a great e-book platform: "A tablet PC is truly a better mousetrap. I think my reading productivity is up at least 10%. Easier on the eyes, easier to hold, easier to turn pages, less weight and volume if you carry more than one book." He finds that the Fujitsu "also works quite well for playing online poker and reading the New York Times and Slashdot in tablet mode." Plus, the built-in 802.11g is many notches above a typical PCMCIA card. "A tablet PC for the home is a luxury," he writes. "But it sure is nice."

Now, imagine how people like Stafford would feel if Tablet PCs came without all the e-book-related hassles they now do. He may see promise now. But I suspect he'd see a lot more with a truly consumer friendly approach.
posted by David Rothman at 12:57 AM | permanent link

LISNews is appealing for funds to pay for its $180-a-month server costs, and I'd heartily recommend that you check out the case for giving. "I love LISNews," says Blake Carver, "but I need to draw the line now, and start begging for money, or I'm going to need to start thinking about selling a kidney to pay for this soon." This is one of the most newsy library sites on the Net--it lives up to its name well--and it would be a shame to see it vanish.
posted by David Rothman at 11:36 AM | permanent link

From Neff Rotter, as posted to the eBook Community List, with links added here:

Belgrave House has still not received payment from the last quarter of 2003, and now the first quarter of 2004 is also due. We've withdrawn all 80+ e-books from Content Reserve because of the onerous charges they initiated, and it feels like they're adding insult to injury by not paying what they owe us.

Has everyone else received payment? I've e-mailed Ray Fassett four times over the last couple of months, with no answer at all. Any suggestions for getting some action out of them?

*     *     *

From John Landahl of infoStrategist.com, in reply:

Neff, I removed my titles from Content Reserve two months ago and three weeks ago e-mailed Ray Fassett to request payment.  So far I have had no response, which is disappointing because I understood from posts here that Content Reserve had improved a great deal in this regard.

*     *     *

From Jon Noring, eBook Community moderator:

My publishing company, Blue Glass Publishing, has not yet been paid for essentially first quarter 2004 sales through Content Reserve.

I withdrew from the Content Reserve system when they decided to institute outrageous storage fees starting April Fools Day. Fortunately, I have been able to get my ebooks up at all the retailers where the titles have sold well, except for ebooks.com.

My ebook sales have essentially returned to normal, plus my customers can now purchase my ebooks without the silly DRM protection which Content Reserve considers to be a "benefit", but which nearly all customers consider a "curse". I'm now making more money per sale, the retailers can discount more deeply thus benefitting consumers, and my valued customers are now much happier not being treated like potential criminals. And I have not yet seen my ebooks being pirated anywhere.(Btw, is anyone directly selling their titles through ebooks.com?)

I urge other ebook publishers who have not yet been fully paid by Content Reserve to reply to this message and add to the public list. Content Reserve has a legal obligation to pay each publisher per the agreed to contract. If Content Reserve has cash flow problems, it should do whatever is necessary to pay the publishers on time, up to and including taking out a loan or selling company assets.
posted by David Rothman at 6:43 AM | permanent link

From Scott Pendergrast's e-mail:

...in the first quarter of this year, it appears that Fictionwise became the 2nd largest eBook retailer in the world, passing Amazon (not bad for a 6 man company).
posted by Jerry Justianto at 10:00 PM | permanent link

From Tom Peters:

Please join us for eBookWorm on Thursday, May 20, 2004 from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (4:00 Eastern and 1:00 Pacific).

The featured guest this month is Jon Noring, an e-book publisher, technologist, advocate, and standards developer. He is the founder and moderator of The eBook Community, the Internet's oldest, largest, and most respected general ebook forum.

To attend the online discussion, please go to:

http://www.talkingcommunities.com/entrance.pl?LIB-Auditorium&nopass_field=1

Type your name and click enter. A small software applet will download to your computer and then you will enter the room.

Members of the "virtual studio audience" are encouraged to join in the discussion. Everyone with a PC and an Internet connection can communicate via text chat. To use voice-over-IP, you will need to have a microphone connected to (or embedded in) your PC. Thanks.
posted by David Rothman at 2:25 PM | permanent link

Over in the Netherlands, Branko Collin is still doggedly at work to find out what the astronauts are up to with e-books aboard the International Space Station. Just what titles are they reading, for example? Also he's been interested in knowing what books made Dutch astronaut André Kuipers, shown at left, want to rocket into space. From a TeleRead perspective, I love what Branko is up to. Libraries and bookstores shouldn't just should encourage young people to read; they should inspire them to carry out their dreams. So what's worked in the past? Branko's message follows.

I tried NASA a second time, and this time I got an answer [about e-books aboard the space station]. Two, to be precise. Apparently, if you want to know stuff about the astronauts, you have  to contact NASA's Astronaut Office. My message will be forwarded to  them. (Address: Astronaut Office/CB, NASA Johnson Space Center,  Houston, TX 77058.) NASA HCF's webteam confirms that the Hewlett-Packard PDA is being used, but I don't know much more about it.

Kuipers' book-related interview online in Dutch

It seems that the story on the books that made André Kuipers want to become an astronaut was published on the web by, amongst others, André Kuipers himself. There's an extensive interview with Kuipers in Dutch on the science fiction he likes--let me translate a couple of fragments:

"After I had received several parts of the red series from my grandmother [in 1971 - Branko] [...] I started to by the Perry Rhodan series at Boekhandel Oost [Bookshop East - Branko] in the Comelinstraat in Amsterdam-East (of course). I had a nasty surprise when I saw part 26 in the store window. How far along were they? [...] at a certain point in time, my mother went to the publisher to get the remaining parts."

What André Kuipers read in space

The book that he brought into space is the very first his grandmother bought him, part 10 of the series, Ruimteoorlog in de Wegasector (Space War in the Wega Sector). (See the image on the aforementioned website.)

Kuipers was also a fan of the TV series The Thunderbirds.

Although he hasn't read any Science Fiction recently, he warmly remembers Russian Spring by Norman Spinrad. "I also think 3001 by Arthur C. Clarke is wonderful. I am currently listening to it on cassette tapes."

Also, Kuipers mentions the Perry Rhodan series in his diary at the ESA website.

My personal opinion: Perry Rhodan was my first encounter with the Space Opera, and I hated it. I couldn't understand why you would have knights in shining armour saving princesses--and then transplant that story into space! It seemed a mockery of real science fiction to me.

Unfortunately, Kuipers is already back on the planet's surface, so the item has lost much of its newsworthiness.
posted by David Rothman at 6:19 AM | permanent link

Is Adobe Systems really outsourcing a fair share of its online e-book distribution and support to OverDrive's Media Vending unit because "e-books just aren't as important as they once were"?

Accurately or not, that's what an Adobe receptionist told the guy behind the labyrinthe blog after he suffered downloading problems that seemed to be DRM related.

24+ phone calls to "Adobe": A tough case even for a retired homicide investigator

Mr. Labyrinthe made at least 24 phone calls to what was depicted as Adobe--only to learn he was really dealing with OverDrive in his troubled quest for Adobe Creative Suite All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies.

As a retired homicide investigator, perhaps someday Mr. Labyrinthe can crack the biggest mystery of all--how Adobe and the other usual suspects could make such a mess of a promising medium. See Outsourcing... and Meanwhile over at Amazon... for more. If Mr. Labyrinthe's experiences are representative, it would appear that OverDrive still hasn't mastered the DRM act or at least the distribution act despite all the ballyhoo about its expertise.

Pathetic

Sad; in fact, pathetic. This is yet one more reason for Steve Potash to step down as president of the Open eBook Forum to concentrate on saving his troubled company, which, for the sake of the e-book industry, ideally will survive. If I were an investor in OverDrive, I would be screaming. Of course, some might point out that Steve seems to exist at the OeBF to do the bidding of Adobe, Microsoft and Palm Digital Media. Maybe he's so safe they don't want him to leave the presidency and the board, lest any replacement be even a little more susceptible to a the idea of a Universal Consumer Format. Time to put the OeBF out of its misery? This nightmare of a "standards" group is not a very good reflection on either the e-book business or software business.

Related: The e-Napoleon factor: Is Steve Potash the OeBF prez for life? I still don't know when this year the OeBF board will hold a presidential election, assuming it hasn't already.
posted by David Rothman at 5:06 AM | permanent link

In A New Spin on the Music Business, Wired describes Harvard Law Professor William "Terry" Fisher's compensation-per-access plan--for which various forms of taxes would pay. The concept intrigues me whether it's applied to music, books or anything else. In fact, in a 1992 Computerworld article, I proposed a TeleRead national digital library that might be supported by taxes on TVs. Much has changed since '92, but the basic concept was and is the same as Fisher's.

These days I still see a place for taxes in TeleRead's financing, but have placed far more emphasis on private philanthropy than before, given how obnoxious the feds have been at times in such matters as--yes, copyright law. What we need is a balance in funding sources so that neither big corporations nor Washington can call the shots. That's also one reason why I would hate it if TeleRead replaced all private book-selling on the Net.

Simply put, although I still think that libraries are the most desirable model for e-books, given the need to reduce the incentive for piracy without the creation of RIAA-friendly copyright Gestapos, we need a variety of business models.

Detail: Brazilian officials, especially the minister of culture, a musician named Gilberto Gil, are interested in the possibility of a database of music in line with the Fisher vision. Or TeleRead vision? I'd love to see Brazil experiment with this idea in a book context as well.

(Thank to Billy Barron and Jon Noring for the pointers to the Wired article.)
posted by David Rothman at 3:59 AM | permanent link

The same day David Faucheux started Blind Chance, Lori Bell and Tom Peters used Blogger in a different way for the blind. They started DTBdaily, devoted to digital talking books. At least some of the posts will be in audio. Lori, of course, has been recognized for her innovatations at the Mid-Illinois Talking Books Center, while Tom runs Tap Information Services and also works with the MITBC. Way to go, Lori and Tom! The DTB newsletter should be a most useful service.

Related: Via DTBdaily, I see a reference to the news that OverDrive is entering the field of digital talking books in Windows Media. Service is to begin in the third quarter of of '04. Let's hope that Microsoft's DRM features do not get in the way of blind users. In the UK, the Royal National Institute for the Blind is avoiding DRM when it releases digital audio CDs of books.
posted by David Rothman at 8:20 AM | permanent link

Blind Chance: David Faucheux's Audio Blog may or may not be the first blog by a blind person. Either way, however, it should be "must" reading for librarians, educators and others serving bind people--as well as the blind themselves. More details appear in the blog itself.

Entries began on Thursday--when David, holder of an MLIS from Louisiana State University, recorded his introduction. You can hear the MP3 by clicking here.

Remembering Nader the yellow Lab

Also check out the MP3 of David's advice on seeing-eye-dog etiquette and his fond recollection of Nader, his late yellow Lab.

"He enjoyed visiting the library," David says. "He seemed to like to snooze under the table while bits of knowledge rained down on his slumbers. It's basically easy to handle guide dogs in the library as their book needs are very small.

"One need only remember that when dealing with a guide dog or other service anaimal, while it is tempting to pet them--they're so adorable--it's better not to. You can certainly ask the owner, and sometimes they can let you or not--it just depends on the owner and the animal. Some animals get so excitable that it's better not to stir them up. Some like to be petted and lie graciously, letting you stroke their soft fur."

How you can help

Want to know other ways how you can be most helpful to the blind at your library or on your Web site? Write David with your questions--triviaguy@bellsouth.net.

And if you yourself are blind or visually impaired, we might be able to help you start your own blog--by hooking you up with people with the technical knowledge to assist you. Write me at dr@teleread.org.

Audio Blogger used

Yes, David's blog is using the new Audio Blogger service, which is free and lets people make posts by phone without a computer needed.

Detail: The word I get is that the TeleRead site is okay but hardly perfect in access for the blind. In the future we'll be working on that. Already we have a Blind/VI editon of the TeleBlog with simple layout to make it easier for blind and visually impaired people to access us via speech synthesis.

Update: The Faucheux blog began as "Blind Ambition," but we've dropped that after discovering an interesting blind-oriented Web site by the same name. It is not a blog. Anyone know of any blind blogs preceding David's?
posted by David Rothman at 5:07 AM | permanent link