The ideal e-book

In our talk about the not (yet) used potential of e-books at the Inetbib conference (www.inetbib.de) in Berlin, Bruno Wenk – my colleague at HTW Chur – and I outlined some characteristics of an ideal academic e-book.  We invite you to join the discussion!

The ideal e-book

• is based on the standard EPUB3 and is also published as a complete PDF
• contains the necessary metadata for direct import into a catalog or a reference management system
• contains markers of paragraphs to allow citation in scientific articles
  • Example: 10.1007/978-3-8349-8027-4_3/0012
• restricts the use not with a „hard“ DRM. Unauthorized use or alteration of the content is prevented by watermark or digital signature.
• can be integrated in work environments (highlighting, annotation, collaboration etc.)
• is automatically updated when a new version is available
• is published under open access or accessible for everybody by a national license

Do you have ideas and suggestions for additional ideal characteristics or comments to these suggestions? Feel free to use the comment feature of the blog!