Moving into the next age for readers

At ricoblog, Rick Brannan responded to the post below, The first thing or two about e-books. He is an information architect at Logos Bible Software.

With his permission, I quote from his blog and our email correspondence (visit his blog to read his comments in full):

Rick Brannan:
I wonder if [you are] aware of Logos Bible Software. ... Logos strives to reproduce the printed page as much as it makes sense in an electronic environment while adding features appropriate for an electronic environment (the Libronix Digital Library System, in this case). These enhancements are primarily in the realm of hypertext referencing (so, click on a Bible ref, or a Josephus ref, or a reference to 'page 347' and go there), topic indexing, and (increasingly) in distinguishing different fields of information for searching purposes.

Some resources take this quite far. The morphologically tagged editions of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament have all sorts of data stuffed in there, associated with specific words. This would never work in print, it only works electronically — much like [your] chess example only works electronically and doesn't work in print.

Other resources have a relatively high degree of interaction. One recent example is Moody's AM Bible Courseware (be sure to check the video at the bottom of the page), which is powered by the Libronix Digital Library System. The books are delivered as books, they are cross-referenced with the larger Logos Bible Software library. And yes, there are tests. ...

He adds, lest he be misunderstood as an electronifying zealot:

There are many things that could be done electronically that don't occur in Logos books. I like to describe these sorts of things as a sort of "multimedia extravaganza." It is all in accordance with Brannan's First Law of Electronic Book Design: Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Roger Sperberg:
I should plead guilty upfront to the charge of making overgeneralizations (not merely generalizations, mind you, but OVERgeneralizations). I'm also familiar only with certain parts of publishing and tend to ignore my ignorance about other areas and their pertinence.

That said, let me qualify my position. The courseware/books that are demonstrated in the Libronix DLS video are, as you say, examples of what can be done with texts only when they're electronic and they're something being done already.

But I want to distinguish between electronic presentation of texts that can only be read on a computer, and e-books that can be read on portable reading devices. (Not that I said this in my posts.) CD-ROM publishing and web publishing (and the capabilities of Libronix demonstrated seem to fall in that spectrum) are outside this scope. On the other hand, if you were doing these same things in a clear and workable fashion and the book/product could be read on a PocketPC or Palm or Librie or Cytale or eBookwise or Gemstar device, then I would be singing your praises.

I'm very much indebted to Bill Hill at Microsoft for reading the 10,000 documents on fonts, reading comprehension, book design and so on that he did, and for distilling the essence of what makes a book a book and what permits "ludic reading." I lean heavily on his research and conclusions. If you haven't read his 80-page research paper then that may be your next step. I think you have a great research tool. I imagine I could lose myself in reading texts in it. But to me you have more of a software application than a book. And failing so many of Hill's criteria for ludic reading, I do not think if all texts were available in your system that it would move us into the next age for readers.

My point in my post is not that e-book publishers don't know that they should or could link more, bring in other texts and pictures, and so on, but that you and I, as bringers-about-of-the-future, as Prometheans of publishing, have TWO obligations to meet if we are to succeed: we must find the things (hyperlinks in your case, motion graphics for process in my example) that print books can't do AND then execute these capabilities in such a fashion that in every other aspect we humans still regard the object we are reading as a book.

Remember too that every criterion I could list as to what makes a book could almost be met by magazines and newspapers and web pages — and CD-ROM publications too — and that I claim a special role for books. Hill's title claims the magic for reading and not for book-reading, and so maybe I'm on thin ice when I argue from this position. But it's why I focused on books instead of information retrieval as the key issue for libraries going into the future. Many people won't agree with me; and perhaps you won't agree with me, but that would be their and your prerogative. But my story is we've got to keep an e-book really booklike, and I'm sticking to it.

Rick Brannan:
I think ... Roger and I use the term "ebook" just a little differently. I've got the blinders on to my particular context and I usually take it to mean "electronic implementation of a printed resource," typically as a resource in the Libronix Digital Library System, though not necessarily. Roger's definition is admittedly a bit more broad than mine is. Once I understood this, the light went off and many of Roger's comments fell into place.

[Update: The discussion continues at ricoblog with more of Rick's thoughts.]