NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/gutnberg/402

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-03 | 5.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!anthony
From: [e-mail] (Anthony J Stieber)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gutnberg
Subject: Re: etext, publishing, and equality of access
Date: 3 Jan 1993 08:55:46 GMT
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (AMY CHARLES) writes:
>    Etext assumes the reader has a computer, or access to a computer, which
>    can handle CD-ROM or has a modem.That's a large assumption; many people

I'm not sure Project Gutenberg actually distributes any texts on
CD-ROM, although others do distribute the same texts that way.  Project
Gutenberg distributes texts on floppies through the postal system and
through the Internet, which may, or may not involve modems for the end
user.

>    likely to have computers.  Because production costs on disk are so much
>    lower than on paper (distribution too), it's likely publishers will stop

It depends.  A CD-ROM costs about $1.25 in large quantities, this may
not include artwork, or inserts.  The cheapest floppy is about $0.25 in
large quanties, duplication costs can double that.  Neither price
includes the cost of data, royalties, shipping/handling, or software to
read the files on the disks.  There are periodicals with gigabytes (a
CD-ROM or three worth) of equivalent digital data that cost less then
either floppy or CD-ROM.

Once all the costs are added in, it just isn't that much lower on a one
to one basis.  The real cost savings is when publishers can use a high
density medium such as CD-ROM and can pack in hundreds of item spread
over a year, or thousands of items spread over a month.  Either way
it's not the sort of thing that many individuals buy anyway.

>    lower than on paper (distribution too), it's likely publishers will stop
>    publishing certain kinds of books on paper, figuring core markets have and
>    prefer computers anyway.

It will be a long time before that happens for most published material.
Until there is a hardware that can:

    rest in the palm of the hand
    runs weeks or months on batteries
    display full color
    display full sized pages (at least a single magazine page)
    store gigabytes of information
    cost what the bulk of users/publishers can affford
    use media available everywhere paper is or used to be

it won't happen.  These specifications are roughly in order of
increasing difficulty.  There already are such palmtop devices, but
they barely fulfill the first two criteria.

Perhaps a publisher or clearing house might offer a package deal of
several magazines (perhaps for two or three years).  Subscribers could
choose the digital option and get a "free" reader and disk mailed each
month.

It's also possible to encrypt the data such that a user buys (or is
given) a disk then buys the keys needed to decrypt the data that the
user is interested in.  This can lower costs to the publisher, and will
tend to lower costs to the user.

All this is in the future, perhaps as soon as the next 10 years.  Costs
cannot be high to either publisher or end user, and it has to really be
better, not merely be as good as, paper.

>    be shut out.  Having neither computers nor paper copies available, they
>    will be forced out of readship; they will lose access to information
>    previously available ttheoorest literate.  I think this would be tragic.

You mean like what has already happened because microforms readers and
printers are so expensive?  Microforms didn't force out readerships, it
expanded them.  Libraries buy both paper and microforms, then junk the
paper, and thus are able to buy and keep more periodicals than they
could before.  Digital storage could eventually replace microforms
entirely, and little will change for the user.

>    than it is.  Many of our strongest, brightest people are self-educated;
>    etext is not democratic enough to allow this.

True, etext does need resources that most people do not have access
to at the moment.  However, paper text is expensive too, it just has a
lower upfront cost.  The self-educated (and many individuals) must make
heavy use of libraries and other free/cheap sources of paper
information, they will do the same for digital information.

Already companies and universities throw out in the garbage more
computing power today that was in the world fourty years ago.  An old
used computer can be as useful as a used manual typewriter.  Used
machines will become more even more useful because the technology is
getting better faster.  A 1972 computer wasn't very useful in 1982, but
a 1982 microcomputer in 1992 can be actually be useful.  This trend
will probably continue.

The tragedy will not be the exclusive use of digital information over
paper, but if our infrastructure doesn't keep up with the new
technology.   Project Gutenberg is part of the new infrastructure.

Digital based publishing has the potential to replace all paper based
publishing.  However, the technology and the clientle are not present
there to make it happen.  When it does happen, it is possible for those
without resources to get locked out, but the very nature of the
improvements needed to make it happen will make it available to all.

By the way the terms "electronic text" or "electronic mail" become
misnomers when the primary means of storing and transmitting them is
optical.  Already most data is transmitted optically and techology like
CD-ROM is also optical.  The term "digital text" still has a lot of
life in it.  Life is also filled with misnomers and semantic shifts.
--
<-:(= Anthony Stieber    [e-mail]   uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony