ELECTRONIC BOOKS

What is an E-book?

According to Ana Arias Terry an e-book consists of

electronic content originating from traditional books,
reference material, or magazines that is downloaded
from the Internet and viewed through any number of
hardware devices. These include PCs, laptops, PDAs
(personal digital assistants), palm PCs or palmtops, or
dedicated e-book readers.

What is an E-book?

The Wikipedia defines as An e-book (also: eBook, ebook),

sometimes called an electronic book, is an electronic (or
digital) equivalent of a conventional printed book. The
term has occasionally been used ambiguously to refer
to either an individual work in a digital format, or a
hardware device used to read books in digital format,
more specifically called an e-book device or e-book
reader

What is an E-book?

An Electronic book is an integration of the

classical book structure, with features which can
be provided within an electronic environment.
This can be used as an interactive document
which can be composed & read on a computer or
another electronic device.

Development of E-books

The electronic book (ebook) was born

In 1971, with the first steps of
Project Gutenberg, a digital library
for books from public domain.

Development of E-books
The internet went live in 1974, with the creation of the protocol
TCP/IP by Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn.
It began spreading in 1983 as a network for research centers and
universities. It got its first boost with the invention of the web by
Tim Berners-Lee in 1990, and its second boost with the release of
the first browser Mosaic in 1993. From 1994 onwards, the
internet quickly spread worldwide.
The internet didn't bring print media, movies, radio or television to
an end. It created its own space as a new medium, to get
information, access documents, broaden our knowledge and
communicate across borders and languages.

Development of E-books
The online bookstore Amazon.com was launched by Jeff Bezos in July
1995. When Amazon.com started, it had 10 employees and a
catalog of 3 million books. The "virtual" windows are its webpages,
with all transactions made through the internet.
Booksellers began selling books online within and outside their home
country, offering excerpts on their websites.
Libraries began creating websites as a "virtual" window, as well as
digital libraries stemming from their print collections. Library
catalogs went online. Union catalogs offered a common point for
hundreds and then thousands of catalogs.

Development of E-books

Newspapers and magazines began being available online, as well as

their archives. Some journals became "only" electronic to skip the
costs of print publishing.
Authors began creating websites to self-publish their work or post it
while waiting to find a publisher. Some authors explored new ways
of writing, called hypertext literature.

Development of E-books
In October 2004, Google launched the first part of Google Print as
a project aimed at publishers, for internet users to be able to see
excerpts from their books and order them online.
In December 2004, Google launched the second part of Google Print
as a project intended for libraries, to build up a digital library of 15
million books by digitizing the collections of main partner libraries,
beginning with the universities of Michigan (7 million books),
Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, and the New York Public Library.
The program resumed in August 2006 under the new name of Google
Books.

Development of E-books
In the mid-1990s, people read on their desktop computers before
reading on their laptops.
The Palm Pilot was launched in March 1996 as the first PDA, and
people began reading on PDAs.
Its main competitors were the Pocket PC (launched by Microsoft in
April 2000) and the PDAs of Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Handspring,
Toshiba and Casio.
People also began reading on the first smartphones launched by Nokia
or Sony Ericsson.

Development of E-books
Better reading devices emerged then,
like the Cybook (new version) in 2004,
the Sony Reader in 2006 and the Kindle in 2007. LCD screens were
replaced by screens using the E Ink technology.
The next step should be an ultra-thin flexible display called electronic
paper (epaper), launched in 2010 by E Ink, Plastic Logic and others.

TYPES OF E-BOOKS
Two major types of E-books:

Digitized the electronic version of a whole text (for

example, of a book that already exists in print); obtained
by scanning.
Database of linked materials, some but not all of which
may exist in a print version, music, 3-D views,
hyperlinks, etc.

Technologies Available for Reading E-Books

1. online or Internet-based - Examples include:

Netlibrary (http://www.netlibrary.com)

Ebrary (http://www.ebrary.com)

Questia (http://www.questia.com)

2. Offline or specific e-book reader based - In the

offline version users will read e-books through
special e-book reader software, which can be
downloaded, from the Internet.

Relevance of E-Books for Teaching, Learning or

Creative Inquiry
E-books provide multimedia information, full-text searching, reference
linking, flexibility in searching and browsing, selection of different
types of fonts, portability, and interoperability on a variety of
devices.
E-book reader software allows users to highlight, annotate, underline
and bookmark.
Almost all reading devices provide adjustable backlighting which
enables e-book users to read comfortably in poor lighting
conditions, even in bed at night, without disturbing others.

Relevance of E-Books for Teaching, Learning or

Creative Inquiry
For users who are frequent travelers, or who have to carry out research
in remote places e-books offer a substitute for print books and
provide easier portability.
For teachers and students, e-books are a very good classroom teaching
tool and are a good device for those with lowhand dexterity.
E-books which are available online can be accessed 24/7 from a local
desktop, are able to be accessed remotely and more than one person
may be able to access the same e-book at a time.

Relevance of E-Books for Teaching, Learning or

Creative Inquiry
E-books do not go out of print, are easy to download, can be
customised to suit individual needs (especially by those who may
be physically challenged), allow many people to access the same
book at the same time, are free from problems of being misplaced,
and do not suffer from wear and tear or theft.

E-Book : Indian Scenario

The SASTRA at Thanjavur achieves the unique distinction of being the

first University / Institution in the country to purchase the entire ebook library collection of Springer, one of the worlds largest
publishing company. SASTRA is the only University in the country
to subscribe to this entire suite of e-book collection offered by
Springer.

E-Book : Indian Scenario

To understand more about the users perspective about e-books and

their usability, a study surveyed the researchers at the Indian
Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore.The responses indicated that
the students tend to use this new technology more often than faculty
members and staff. Those who did use e-books mostly used
reference and technical material. Use of e-books appears to be very
low indicating a requirement for creating awareness and user
education about both software and hardware related to eBooks.
Only 37 of the 104 respondents had used the free trial offer to
Kluwer and Edutech eBooks during July 2004.

E-Book : Indian Scenario

A Study has undertaken in Central Food and Technological Research

Institute (CFTRI) about the use of Electronic Resources. In that
study only 7 respondents were used the e-books out of 70
respondents. It show only 10% were used the ebook.
In addition to Indian Scenario the survey of Task Force of the
University of California 2001 found that most institutions are still
in trial stage with e-books and e-book market viable are not quite in
pace.

Limitations of E-Books

Physical and Mental Strain

Reading an e-book while traveling in train or bus is not so easy and
cheaper in comparison with printed books. Laptop or Palm top with
battery system is urgently necessary to read an e-book, which is
more costly than a book.
Lack of resources.

CONCLUSION
Electronic Book have become the vital part of human life in 21st
century. The technological advances today make it possible to think
in terms of storing all the knowledge of the human race in digital
form. For long-term preservation of our knowledge base and
cultures we have to find out an economical way to save digital
content for future generations. In the present day Information
Scenario, India is very much behind with world Scenario. I am sure
that the e-book culture will grow very fast in India.

THANK YOU