The New and the Restless
At BookExpo America, the buzz (and the angst) was all about e-books
Staff -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2000
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Scholastic's Barbara Marcus, president, |
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here was no escaping it. The buzz and confusion surrounding the emerging e-book fully permeated last month's BookExpo America, the national trade show for the publishing industry. Anxious talk about rights, standards, and display devices saturated the show in Chic-ago, making it clear that the e-book, in contrast to the "p-book," as some have taken to calling books printed on paper, is still in its infancy. It's so new, in fact, that its physical development is consuming all energy at this point, leaving content plan-ning to wait until publishers have a moment to breathe.In a harried rush, a handful of companies, such as Glassbook, Microsoft, and netLibrary, are creating standards for e-book use and distribution that allows access to electronic text, yet protects the rights of publishers and authors by limiting the ability to copy content indiscriminately. But until these issues are ironed out, widespread e-book development can't happen, say industry people. Another hurdle is to design electronic text that isn't tied to a particular piece of hardware. A large working group of developers and publishers plans to release standards this fall that will "allow content to run on any device, whether an e-book appliance or personal digital assistant," says Len Kawell, president of Glassbook and a member of the working group.
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A large working group of developers andpublishers plans to release standards this fall that will 'allow content to run on any device, whether an e-book appliance or personal digital assistant.' |
On the other hand, the p-book world concentrated on what's between the covers for this fall. The first list from North-South's new imprint, Sea Star, drew attention, in part, because it features Caldecott--winning illustrators Trina Schart Hyman and Molly Bang, who is reissuing her 1991 book, Picture This: How Pictures Work. Another new publishing endeavor, Hand-print Books, is starting up under Christopher Fran-ceschelli, a former Dutton publisher. Handprint's first list has some "dynamite" titles, says Barbara Genco, director of collection development at Brooklyn Public Library. The company promises "to take its place next to Front Street Books" in terms of quality publishing, she adds.
Publishers' fall lists include titles that bear watching. Houghton Mif-flin announced that Lois Lowry's newest book, Gathering Blue, is due this October. Kevin Henkes also has a new book called Wemberly Worried (Greenwillow), featuring a mouse who is worried about her first day at school. This fall marks the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series; to celebrate, HarperCollins will hold a "Create Your Own Narnia" contest this fall.--Renée Olson
