London Book Fair

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Publishing event including a Digital Zone for e-books etc

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Will Pollard
18 December 2009

The London Book fair includes sections for academic publishing and books for children. Also from last year a Digital Zone with presentations about e-books and related workflow. In 2009 Sony was the main feature but Amazon will have some mindshare even if not there. The stands are mostly about XML and how to produce content. the discussion includes how the devices are used. So there is a connection with knowledge and learning.

I have added this now to the Winterlude Cloudscape as i think the timescale for e-books is speeding up. At BETT I expect the Adobe presentations around Flash to be quite convincing. Boring old flat pages of PDF will continue for a while but there is an issue about styles of content and book publishing is part of the discussion.

Contact details: will.pollard@gmail.com

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Will Pollard
11:30am 22 February 2010

I added a link to Pearson USA. Not sure this will be reflected in the UK scene.

Gráinne Conole
4:12pm 22 February 2010

I am not convinced about e-books, seems like a transitory technology to me given the increased functionality and nice interfaces of iphones etc.

Juliette Culver
4:55pm 22 February 2010

I've done a U-turn on e-books the last few months - I've gradually come across a trickly of people really enthusing about them. I think e-book readers aren't great at the moment though in terms of usability, but the iPad is bound to change that.

Will Pollard
5:09pm 22 February 2010

The iphone is a backlit screen, not good for the eyes over a long time. Most devices use e-ink that is usually just shades of grey but uses the battery only to refresh the page. Works ok for long texts.

If people prefer sound and video to text, then the iPad etc. will be the default and text just happen to be there. Will educational policy go along with this? Text is still pretty string with journals etc.

I have put in a link to Tools of Change, organised by O'Reilly this week in New York. Most of the agenda for the London Book Fair will show up I think.

A shift on general book reading towards devices will have a major impact on how learning happens. "Technology enhancement" started with print and changes here could be rapid. The digital zone at the London Book Fair is still quite small but four times the space for last year.

Gráinne Conole
5:12pm 22 February 2010

Good points Will and Juliette I agree will be interesting to see how the ipad is taken up. I though they might have some in Japan last week, but they are not out there yet...

Will Pollard
4:08pm 24 February 2010 (Edited 4:09pm 24 February 2010)

New link on Tools of Change report. O'Reilly make to case for ebooks to be free of Digital Rights Management. People just don't like it. They have a lot of stats to back up the policy.