The E-Textbooks Are Coming
But print publishers remain cautious
Staff -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2000
Although a group of Florida schools will take part in a test of downloadable electronic textbooks this fall, publishers' concerns about digital rights and the possible "Napsterization" of electronic books have slowed the project. The Winter Park, FL, company running the test, DigitalOwl (www.digitalowl.com), has experienced delays in negotiations with textbook publishers. The test is now scheduled to begin in mid-October. "There's a lot of conservatism among the publishers right now," says Matt Gomez, DigitalOwl's manager of marketing communications. Textbook publishers, mindful of the threat Napster has posed to music publishers, are reluctant to release their products in digital form until they're sure the material can't be pirated. To answer their concerns, DigitalOwl plans to release texts to students during the trial in encrypted HTML that is readable only with Vision, the company's proprietary browser software. The initial texts will be simple digital duplicates of the printed texts, but DigitalOwl plans to add features such as highlighting, hyperlinking, and teacher comments and quizzes. Publishers, Gomez says, will be able to restrict how their texts can be used in the Vision browser--for example, students may not be able to print out hard copies of the e-texts, or copy and paste large sections of text or graphics. Thanks to funding provided by a DigitalOwl investor, students in the initial test will be able to read these e-texts on handheld devices such as Franklin's "eBookMan" Readers (www.franklin.com), although the exact device to be offered to students has not been finalized. Students also will be able to take the devices home with them. The initial texts will be simple digital duplicates of the printed texts, but the company plans to add features such as highlighting, hyperlinking, and teacher comments and quizzes. DigitalOwl's e-texts soon will be available for devices using the Palm operating system, as well as other handheld devices, such as Windows-based Pocket PCs, says Gomez. He says that publishers will decide what to charge for e-texts. "Ultimately, I think digital textbooks will become more popular, and the price will come down." There's definitely a place in the school of 2000 for digital textbooks, says Phyllis Lentz, resource development specialist at Florida High School (FHS), one of the test sites. FHS is a statewide "virtual high school" offering specialized classes online--such as advanced placement history and calculus--to small schools unable to offer them. FHS has an added interest in having its students download their texts from the Net. Because its students are scattered throughout the state, FHS must pay to mail text materials to them. Lentz is optimistic about the future of electronic textbooks, although she believes that it will take several years for them to really take off nationwide. "To make a digital textbook a better alternative than hard copy," she says, "it needs to include interactive features like definitions linked to important terms, and a way for students to highlight passages."--Walter Minkel
