Beyond The PC:New Devices For Our Users

Brian Kelly

UK Web Focus

UKOLN

University of Bath

UKOLN is supported by:

EmailB.Kelly@ukoln.ac.ukURLhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

Acknowledgments

This talk is informed by the work of Sarah Ormes, UKOLN’s Public Library Networking Focus from 1995 - March 2001

Acknowledgments

This talk is informed by the work of Sarah Ormes, UKOLN’s Public Library Networking Focus from 1995 - March 2001

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Contents

• Historical Perspective

• The E-Book – What Is It?

• Publishing For The E-Book

• Conclusions

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Devices

A history of computer devices

OldPaper tapePunch cardTerminalVDUsGraphics

terminalMicro (e.g. BBC,

Sinclair)

CurrentPCMacintoshUnix / Linux

workstations

EmergingWAPE-BookDigital TVPDAsKiosksLaptop (for students){Wireless LANs /

Bluetooth}Failures?X TerminalsNCs (Network

Computers)Thin Clients

FuturesWatchesWearablesElectronic ink (eink.com)…

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LessonsMarketplace

• Need to be aware of marketplace developments: PC as winner / NC as failure / Mac as niche market

• New products and apps are appearing rapidly– and are disappearing too! (dot.com collapses)

Avoidance of proprietary lock-in• Avoid being locked into a device (cf BBC Micro CBL

applications; dongles for PC software; etc.)• Free readers aren’t enough (cf browser plugins)• Royalty-free licences aren’t enough (cf GIF)

Standards• Support for standards essential to:

Minimise locking dangers Allow resources to be reused

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Current

We’ve been here before. So what is so different today?

• Information hungry society (multiple TV channels, email lists, SMS messages, voice mail, …)

• Pervasive networking … coming in UK (e.g. free network access from PCs in shopping malls in Hong Kong)

• Demand from a computer literate student intake (Nintendo generation)

“Where can I read my email?” - typical question for the academic at a conference. The answer is now not just the conference’s PC facility’s but laptop / PDA + mobile phone / landline / wireless LAN

“Where can I read my email?” - typical question for the academic at a conference. The answer is now not just the conference’s PC facility’s but laptop / PDA + mobile phone / landline / wireless LAN

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Benefits

Thin Clients• Pass on capital and supports costs to students!

• Tried and failed at Warwick (laptop policy)- but students are buying mobile phones and PDAs anyway

Mobile Access• Providing access from home /from anywhere will:

Minimise transport costs, ease congestion, etc. Minimise demand on institutional facilities Offline reading should be a good thing,

and it’s desirable to facilitate this

Specialist Requirements• People with disabilities

“I'm a real fan of eBooks - particularly because they are easier to hold than a book!  I have a spinal injury and I have read more books in the last 6 months that the previous 6 yers”

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New DevicesWhat devices may students be interested in?

PDAPDAE-BookE-Book

HybridHybridMobileMobilePalm VX£329 at PC World Siemens

€644 Hybrid phone, MP3 player and PDA

eBookman €359 Hybrid e-book, MP3 player & PDA

Images from <http://www.primeuser.com/>

Note: The Franklin Ebookman fromArgos costs £169

                                       

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What Else Is An E-Book?

An e-book is:• A trendy name for any old resource on the Web• A resource (often large

and book-like if printed) which is encrypted

• A resource stored in an e-book format, which is designed for reading on small devices

• Name of device used to read files in e-book format

Confusion over terminology can make it possible to make incorrect decisions

Confusion over terminology can make it possible to make incorrect decisions

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Exploiting The New Devices

Issues:• Procurement and management of the devices:

IT services do hardware procurement and manage PC clusters, but who will lend out the devices?

Do IT services negotiate preferred deals, and leave users to buy?

• Procurement and management of the content: Clearly a task for the library?

• Publishing your own content: Let’s not forget this cf. the Web – initial interest in finding

content, now in publishing

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Exploiting The New Devices

Researcher• Plugs mobile device into desktop machine and

downloads W3C Web site for reading on train / at home over weekend

• Uses intelligent agent to find relevant resources from e-print archives and downloads to mobile device for reading on train journey (with unpredictable journey time)

Student• On Friday evening in student bar, a friend

mentions some useful reading resources. She takes out her mobile device and, using the Student Union’s wireless network, she downloads the resources

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E-Book Format WarsPDF Derivative

• Based on Adobe’s PDF format• Well-established, well-used• Proprietary, and based on appearance

rather than structureXML Derivative

• Based on XML• XML is now well-established• Open standards, ands , being based based on

document structure, supports re-purposing“My Proprietary Format”

• Other companies muscling in, and making an attractive offer to convert your documents to their locked format

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Proprietary FormatsWarnings:• Dangers of

proprietary formats

• Difficulties in reuse of resources

• Difficulties in managing browser plugins

http://www.tboook.com/faq3.shtml

How does Davtel's proposed e-book solution work?The publisher sends the book in any electronic format to a 3rd party storage company, where it will be translated to our format free of charge.

How does Davtel's proposed e-book solution work?The publisher sends the book in any electronic format to a 3rd party storage company, where it will be translated to our format free of charge.

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Peace In Our Time

There has been:• Recognition of the

dangers of format wars• Agreement between the

two main camps• Adoption of XML :-)• See OeB (Open eBook

Forum) Web site

<http://www.openebook.org/><http://www.openebook.org/>

But there will still be issues about the development and deployment of the standards – and, no doubt,

battles still to be fought(cf WML developments for WAP)

Note also AAP ‘standards’ work in rights management, metadata and numbering –see <http://www.publishers.org/home/ebookstudy.htm>

Note also AAP ‘standards’ work in rights management, metadata and numbering –see <http://www.publishers.org/home/ebookstudy.htm>

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Creating An E-Book

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ViewingHere is what the the HTML resource looks like using an e-book emulator

E-ditorialThis file was created using the E-ditorial software.

What is an e-book?“A simple explanation would be to say that an e-book is a self-running computer program - an executable file.”

i.e. this is a proprietary format!

E-ditorialThis file was created using the E-ditorial software.

What is an e-book?“A simple explanation would be to say that an e-book is a self-running computer program - an executable file.”

i.e. this is a proprietary format!

See <http://www.e-ditorial.com/>.See <http://www.e-ditorial.com/>.

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Another Creation Tool

Drag and drop a Web resourceDrag and drop a Web resource

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A Better Way

Is this ease of creation desirable:• It’s easy to create a HTML page• It’s easy to update Web pages to HTML 4/XHTML• It’s easy to create a PDF version• It’s easy to create a WAP site• It’s easy to make use of Flash • …

Is this true?

If you have a large Web site to maintain and wish to support multiple devices (some which may not take off) you will have to use an automated approach to content management

If you have a large Web site to maintain and wish to support multiple devices (some which may not take off) you will have to use an automated approach to content management

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Resource Reuse

You should store your resources in a neutral, richly-structured format (ideally XML)

XML Database

Local script /CMS /

XSLT Transformation

XHTML

WML

E-book format

Print

PDF

Can you think of any good reasons for storing your resources in a proprietary format, with limited

scope for reuse?

Are:• To provide encryption & security• To outsource the digitisation• To get fancy bells and whistles

good enough reasons?

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Conclusions

To conclude:• There are lots of new devices arriving which

appear to have great potential for use in education• Inevitably some devices and formats will fail to

gain acceptance (remember BetaMax!)• Avoid proprietary lockin:

Dangerous if you choose a failure (Betamax)Dangerous if you choose a winner (Microsoft)

• Management of e-book resources is important, and likely to involve IT services and Librarians

• Creation of e-book resources also important, and should form part of an institution’s IT strategy