Nicholas Lewis wrote:
> I'm doing some research into e-book services and their interaction with
> reference-linking software (e.g. Open URL, DOI, etc.). Can anyone point me
> to any articles on the topic or offer any expertise?
> At the moment, I'm only aware of options for shallow-linking to specific
> book titles. I'm interested in exploring what options there might be for
> deep-linking to individual chapters for example, in the same way as we can
> link to specific journal articles within a given journal.
I'm interested in this too, and am currently engaged in a small reserach
project on ebook indexing, which is looking at efficient ways to convert
existing paper indexes from non-fiction ebooks into effective web-based
indexes. This requires links from index references to the relevant
chapters, sections and perhaps paragraphs, which to me means using XHTML
rather than PDF or any other paper-based ebook format.
I haven't written up the research yet, as it's still in progress,
although I will do next year. However, you can see a couple of examples
of ebooks with linked indexes in the Glasgow Digital Library, which
serves as a testbed for this kind of research as well as a user service:
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/100men/
and
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/
Both ebooks (and their indexes) are generated automatically from a
single structured Word document, via an Access database. There are
other large ebooks in preparation using this methodology.
Another development will be to link from the aggregated place and
subject indexes of the digital library (which cover all collections)
directly to the relevant ebook sections, to help draw out the content of
the ebooks for those browsing by subject or place. This means
applying controlled metadata to ebook chapters and sections.
We have done some literature searching and found very little on
ebook indexing or similar topics, so would be pleased to hear of
any relevant publications.
I know this is a slightly different angle to the original question,
but it seemed relevant and may be of wider interest.
--
Alan Dawson
Senior Researcher/Programmer
Centre for Digital Library Research
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond Street
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow G1 1XH
0141 548 2379
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