Web Of Books
-
Upload
peter-brantley -
Category
Technology
-
view
23.732 -
download
1
description
Transcript of Web Of Books
Peter Brantley Tools of Change Internet Archive Frankfurt, Germany The Presidio 10.09
Entering the digital fold, a tangled landscape:
1. finding the book 2. format of the book 3. acquiring the book
Digital channels are fragmented ...
web search? (Google, Bing, etc) publisher site? (tor.com ... ) the local library? (borrowing/lending) online bookstore? (Amazon, Indigo) alt. vendor? (Smashwords, Shortcovers)
What is the reader getting?
highly structured display (PDF) downloadable book (EPUB, MOBI) cloud-‐based (EPUB > HTML, Flash) not really available at all (biblio data, ILL)
Plethora of devices –
iPhone | Android Sony Reader | iRex Illiad | BeBook | Bookeen Plastic Logic | Amazon Kindle reader device
traditional laptop game console (Wii) near-‐mythical Apple Tablet
+ Device + Format + Discovery + Acquisition + Installation
( + DRM ) = CONFUSION.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan4th/2295925353/
What readers want to have ..
Be able to find the books they want, in the formats that they can use, for the device that they have,
and not have it be painful.
What publishers, libraries, bookstores want -‐
Make books available for discovery, with accurate descriptive information, at as many different places as possible, under the sales / use terms permitted.
Even the U.S. Department of Justice is an advocate:
“[book] data provided should be available in multiple, standard, open formats supported by a wide variety of different applications, devices, and screens.”
Creating a new architecture using common, open standards that permits people to find, buy, acquire, and read books from any source, on any device, using many different ebook applications.
Library 2.0 Gang (02/09): Google books and libraries
various email discussions of nascent “Open Catalogue Crawling Protocol”
Google, DLF, Talis, and others Atom vs Sitemap discussions
IDPF Board conference calls
Tools of Change (NYC, Feb 2009) hallway conversations
Web Expo 2.0 (SF, Apr 2009) pinot noir
“The Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) is a generalization of the Atom [XML] approach used by Stanza's online catalog. ... I believe this effort has the potential to be a critical enabler to the growth in access to, and adoption of, digital books.”
-‐ Bill McCoy, Adobe, 04.09
“BookServer” is the architecture.
“OPDS” is the technical specification.
“Catalogs” are made using OPDS.
“Atom” is the XML scheme for OPDS.
Because OPDS is based on a commonly used XML standard, called Atom –
OPDS Catalogs can be rendered or read by –
web browsers news readers (rss) mobile applications
Because Catalogs are easy to make –
any web site can run a bookstore. libraries, bookstores, publishers can play. search engines can serve as book gateways. aggregators (IA, Ingram, etc.) can harvest multiple catalogs.
Because Catalogs contain simple data describing books and their availability –
Catalogs can also be used for B2B, to distribute data to partners for “harvest” instead of using complicated standards.
(Future: “real time web” notifications.)
Catalogs provide manifests –
list of the titles available information about each title formats the title is available in ways the title can be acquired
A reader ...
1. browses a Catalog of titles 2. selects a title for more information 3. makes a purchase/borrow decision 4. obtains the book (PayPal, Amazon, etc.) 5. installs and reads the book.
Catalogs can be derived from basic bibliographic metadata. Such as:
ONIX, MARC, (ahem) spreadsheets
Internally OPDS Catalogs use simple Dublin Core metadata to describe the titles offered.
ONIX (and BISG “BookDROP”) are:
designed for a different use cases complex standard with many options not widely used beyond publishing not understood by web browsers established; change is difficult
Because we use open standards for describing data, it is possible to link bibliographic book data more easily.
Catalogs could tie together –
book reviews reading lists annotations fan fiction
etc.
A workshop sponsored by the Internet Archive October 19-‐20, Fort Mason San Francisco, California
With the assistance (among many others): O’Reilly Media http://oreilly.com/
Threepress http://threepress.org/ Feedbooks http://feedbooks.com/
Book Oven http://bookoven.com/
Adobe Aldiko (Amazon) Lexcycle Applewood Books Book Oven Booki Feedbooks HumanWare
Ingram Digital O’Reilly Media OLPC Pixel Qi Shortcovers Threepress ... psst ...
and others
Contact information:
peter brantley internet archive @naypinya (twitter) peter @ archive.org
keith fahlgren o’reilly media @abdelazer (twitter) keith @ oreilly.com