Perspectives for Electronic Books in the World Wide Web Age

Bry, François and Kraus, Michael (2002): Perspectives for Electronic Books in the World Wide Web Age. In: The Electronic Library, Vol. 20, No. 4: pp. 275-287

Abstract

While the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) is steadily expanding, electronic books (e-books) remain a niche market. In this article, it is first postulated that specialized contents and device independence can make Web-based e-books compete with paper prints; and that adaptive features that can be implemented by client-side computing are relevant for e-books, while more complex forms of adaptation requiring server-side computations are not. Then, enhancements of the WWW standards (specifically of XML, XHTML, of the style-sheet languages CSS and XSL, and of the linking language XLink) are proposed for a better support of client-side adaptation and device independent content modeling. Finally, advanced browsing functionalities desirable for e-books as well as their implementation in the WWW context are described.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Form of publication: Preprint
• Faculties: Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics > Computer Science
• Subjects: 000 Computer science, information and general works > 004 Data processing computer science
• ISSN: 1758-616X
• Language: English