Part One: Surveying the Universe of Electronic Publishing

Who Wrote This Manual?

This manual was produced by the National Library of Canada, in conjunction with several members of The Commons Group and in consultation with a reference group composed of members of the Canadian academic and publishing communities. The project grew of out the NLC's January 2000 Consultation on Online Publications, a day-long conference whose objective was to provide an informal forum for identifying the key issues that the National Library must address when collecting and providing access to Canadian online publications.

Who Should Use This Manual?

This manual was written for writers and publishers who are relatively new to the realm of electronic publishing, and want to educate themselves about the options that are available to them before they proceed. Though publishers of all sorts will find parts of this document useful, those parties who are already producing print materials and wish to translate their publications into robust electronic versions suitable for a wide variety of applications (including archiving and long-term storage) stand to gain the most use from these pages.

Part Two of the manual, 'Entering the Universe of Electronic Publishing', provides brief but detailed descriptions of the most common formats for electronic publications, along with links to more detailed resources, and the Web sites of publishers who are already utilizing these formats.

Part Three, 'The NLC and Electronic Publications', describes the NLC's mandate for collecting electronic publications, and outlines the various programs that the Library has instituted to facilitate the production, cataloguing and archiving of electronic publications in Canada. Part Three also provides links, email addresses and contact information for those wishing to learn more about these programs, or to reach Library staff directly.

The Universe of Electronic Publications: What's Out There?

The short answer to 'What's out there?' in the world of electronic publishing is 'Everything.' If something can be published in print, it's also being published online, somewhere. What's more, many kinds of publishing that aren't possible on paper or other types of physical media, such as animation, interactive applications and 3-dimensional games, are also happening concurrently.

A few of the many different kinds of online publishing that currently exist appear on the following diagram. There are many ways to conceptualize such a list; this diagram presents a grid that ranges from commercial to non-commercial forms on one axis, and from proprietary formats to standard formats along the other.

Outside of all four quadrants lies the realm of 'Things we don't know about yet', which will probably remain the major category of electronic publications as long as the current rate of innovation continues.

This manual currently deals with a relatively small segment of the online publishing universe, specifically, the portions that are most analogous to traditional print publications. While the NLC is actively interested in collecting all forms of electronic publications, its current electronic collection consists primarily of texts produced by print-based writers and publishers who have begun expanding their activities into the digital realm. In the coming years, the NLC hopes to strengthen its relationships with the producers of digital-only materials, as these materials constitute the majority of what is published electronically. As these relationships grow, the contents of this manual will also grow.

Pros and Cons of Electronic Publishing

Motivations for publishing online are varied and complex.

Before 1994, the Internet was in essence a 'free' medium, characterized by an open sharing of information, without regard to the commercial possibilities of digital publication. The development of the graphical Web browser, combined with the steady increase in access speed, produced a much wider interest in the medium, expanding the user base far beyond the original circle of academics and hobbyists. The first commercial web sites and 'dot.com' companies appeared not long afterward, though many lacked (and still lack) viable business models for making money online. In the late 1990s, the most common approach was 'Let's just get online now and we'll figure the money stuff out later'. Since the spring 2001 downturn in technology stocks, the level of interest among commercial enterprises for all things digital has become substantially cooler, and many companies have retreated to a more conservative position, either scaling back or cancelling their online ventures entirely.

For many print publishers thinking about expanding into digital publishing, the current 'wait and see' atmosphere comes as something of a relief. Selling books is a difficult business at the best of times; adding the expense of producing simultaneous digital editions without the presence of any clear solutions for the problems surrounding rights and licensing and secure distribution of digital publications is prohibitive for many publishers. On the other hand, some publishers have found that capitalizing on the general aura of excitement surrounding new technology by producing digital publications on a limited scale has boosted the sale of their print titles.

For other types of publishers, though, commercial success isn't an issue. Many individual writers, small magazines, specialized small presses, non-profit organizations and government departments have found the digital realm to be ideally suited for their purposes. Digital publications can be produced and circulated relatively inexpensively, and can reach a readership far wider than small-scale print publications. And beyond the selfish notion of 'publicity', many publishers see the process of creating broader access to texts of all sorts as a public good.

Here are some of the serious arguments for why electronic publishing isn't such a great idea:

• Rights Management and Control: it's virtually impossible to keep someone from copying an electronic publication if they have their mind set on doing so. Further, there are no effective national or international systems for managing rights and licensing issues around electronic publications, though some companies, such as ContentGuard, have made significant advances with XrML (Extensible Rights Markup Language).
• Startup Costs: outlay for the training, hardware and software necessary to publish electronically can be considerable and generally ongoing.
• Competing Standards: There are currently a multitude of competing incompatible formats and delivery systems for electronic publications; some even require specialized (and expensive) hardware to access them.
• Vague Market: in the commercial sector, it's unclear who will buy electronic publications, and how they will buy them. The current downturn in the fortunes of the technology marketplace has created an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt around electronic publications, and many companies have decided to take a 'wait and see' approach to the question of whether or not to expand online. Universities and research institutions have, on the other hand, moved quite rapidly toward adopting e-publications to their fullest extent to service their specialized clientele.
• Data Security: to protect one's information assets, the cost of installing such things as encryption and firewalls are indeed very expensive but absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, there are many good reasons for extending traditional publishing activities into the electronic universe:

• Portability: once a document is in electronic form, it is easy to repurpose it for any imaginable format (Braille, print-on-demand, Web content, etc.)
• Renewal: legacy material such as out-of-print books can take on a whole new life if recreated as electronic publications.
• Enhancement: electronic documents have characteristics not found in print documents, such as animation and hyperlinking. It's also far cheaper to produce full-colour electronic documents than it is to produce full-colour print documents.
• Ubiquity: if placed online, electronic documents have a potential audience far greater than any print document.
• Publicity: because of the excitement surrounding electronic publishing, electronic documents make effective advertising for your company and your other products.

While each business has to make such decisions for themselves, it's clear that electronic publishing in some form is an inevitability. There are definite benefits to be reaped from approaching electronic publishing with a pragmatic, carefully organized approach. This document is designed to help anyone interested in electronic publishing locate all of the resources they need to begin to publish online in an informed, risk-free manner.