Re: Customized Electronic Text collections

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

Some components of this idea are old hat, and others are hard to implement.
I say this not to discourage you, but to try to focus the discussion on
finding ways to overcome the real problems, which I see as basically the
hardware side of this idea, not the content/software side.

The old part: 

Text-file collections of public-domain literature have been around for
years. The old Project Gutenberg is a name many will remembe, and there was
at least one big site in the UK as well. I'm out of date on what's happened
to these efforts, but they should be easy to track down. The import of this
is that a lot of the literature you want already exists in ascii-text form.

There's also a commercial part to this: several publishers sell CDs with
technical texts on them. Two sources that many on this list may recognize
are O'Reilly (www.ora.com) and Dr. Dobb's Journal (www.ddj.com/cdrom). These
commercial CDs aren't cheap, but they do deliver real savings over their
print equivalents.

That said, there are issues regarding text. Not all text fits well into the
constraints of ascii. I wouldn't want to try to write an ascii-only math
text, for example -- specialized characters and illustrations are too
central to the presentation to be dispensed with. Your basic idea would work
well for literature written in (or translated to) English but require some
extensions to do well in presenting other kinds of material. (The DDJ CDs,
for example, mostly use html.)

The new part:

The problem with inexpensive electronic texts is that they require expensive
displays - in a classroom context, a computer for every student, available
both in the classroom and for homework/studying. Full-fledged computers are
too expensive, and too non-portable, for this use. The core problem of
creating a portable, dedicated reader has typically been the cost of a
display with resolution and stability good enough for long periods of
reading. Up to now, this has limited e-books to specialized niches,
typically ones where searching is more important than linear reading.

So ... I think the best way to pursue this idea is to focus on the problem
of creating a small device (say the size and weight of a mass-market
paperback, about 7" by 4" (and 1" thick), and 10 ounces - apologies to the
Europeans, but I still don't think metric) that has a decent display, some
means of interacting with it (stylus-based, perhaps?), and some way to get
the texts into mass storage (small hard disk? the things they use in cameras?). 

It also needs to be inexpensive enough that there could be a way to assure
that each student had one -- think about pricing comparable to the TI
calculators that math classes use -- and have sufficient battery life that
poser losses would not disrupt classrooms. (Does anyone know how school
handle these issues now in the context of calculators?) 

An embedded Linux solution would be nice for it; there's certainly been work
along that line. If the device were available and priced aggressively enough
that it gained market share, the initial content would be easy to collect
and organize for presentation.

If this were accomplished, it would provide a bettere basis for efforts to
create modern electronic texts, something that has been discussed on this
list, than the desktop (or expensive, breakable laptop) computer. It would
be a major step forward ... though to move past classic texts, it would need
support for extended character sets and some way to present illustrations.

Not being a hardware guy, I don't know what the current difficulties are in
making high-quality, small displays, particularly ones that incorporate
touch sensitivity or some equivalent. I don't use a PalmPilot or WinCE
device myself, but based on limited experience from trying them at store
displays, I doubt they are good enough to support the kind of sustained and
concentrated reading needed for novels or textbooks.

At 03:36 PM 9/2/99 -0700, Bill Ries-Knight wrote [in part]:

>As I fought through all of this stuff a vision began appearing before my
>eyes.  A portable device or CDROM type package, with "Standard Texts" to
>work and study from, instead of lugging around binders and books.
....
>Here is the thought.  It would be nice to be able to access standard
>classic texts such as Homer, Plato, Descartes, as well as more modern
>standards, and work with them ineractively (cut and paste to a word
>processor) as a student resource.
>
>The major benefits I see are:
>Lots of texts on a single CD, custom compiled for the school.
>LOWER COSTS, more reflective of Royalties than of Production.
>Fewer items for a young person to lug around.
>Easy replacement of the texts in case of damage or changes.
>Local control, even at the school or insrtuctor level.
....


------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA  94303-3603    	 	        ray@comarre.com        
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