I would concur with this comment!
Over the last few months I have started to pay quite a bit of attention
to what I am currently calling electronic monographs. I am acting as a
facilitator on this subject at the Charleston Conference next week,
where I plan to raise the issues you mention, if only to ensure that at
least we are sure of the open questions, even though the answers may not
yet be very evident! Let us see if we can avoid the current problems of
electronic journal management.
>From the rather limited research that I have done to date I have a sense
that the initial market may be in the creation of course material at
undergraduate level, where lecturers often find it difficult to
recommend one book that matches their particular approach to their
course. Wirth the advent of electronic journals I could see benefits in
students being able to link directly from the bibliographies in the
chapters to the primary literature. It is often forgotten that one of
the purposes of the Pilot Site Licence Initiative in the UK academic
sector was the provision of course packs for students.
There has been a very good overview of electronic monographs by Chris
Armstrong and Ray Lonsdale, commissioned by the UK eLib programme, and
you can find details on the www.ukoln.ac.uk site. Well worth reading.
I was surprised that there was very little in the way of electronic
monographs at the recent Frankfurt Bookfair, other than some of the new
digital portable readers. ( There is a short but good article on these
in the 2 Nov 1998 issue of Business Week for those unfamiliar with
current developments). I would also highlight the item on p16 of the 27
Oct 1998 edition of the Financial Times (London edition) of the new
'virtual reality monograph' from Springer Verlag.
Martin White
Principal Consultant
TFPL Ltd
www.tfpl.com
[log in to unmask]
>----------
>From: Gerry Mckiernan[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: 27 October 1998 21:46
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: WebBooks: Identification, Acquisition and Management
>
> _WebBooks: Identification, Acquisition, and Management_
>
> Over the past several weeks, months, (and years?), there has/have
>been general and specific discussions relating to the identification,
>acquisition, and management of E-Serials (e.g., E-journals, Pay-Per-
>View/transactional access, cataloging, cost/benefit, etc.). However,
>to my knowledge there has not been appropriate and analogous discussions
>that relate to the identification, acquisition, and management of
>WebBooks. By WebBooks, I mean full-text (plus) monographic works that
>are accessible over the Web [I _am_ aware of hand-held E-Book developments]
>
> I would be interested in beginning a discussion on these other
>electronic publications, from production, to identification, to
>selection, to acquisition, to cataloging, to access, to storage, etc.
>
> As Always, any and all contributions to the topic are most welcome.
>
> Joy!
>
>/Gerry McKiernan
>Theoretical Librarian
>Iowa State University
>Ames IA 50011
>
>[log in to unmask]
>http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/
>
>
> "The Best Way to Predict the Future is To Invent It!"
> Alan Kay
>
>
>
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