E-Books as A Tool for Scholarly Communication : Emerging Trends and Technologies

Abstract

The online revolution brought about by the world wide web accompanied by other advancements in the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) is having a deep impact on the publishing industry. Readers are enjoying the fruits in the form of online journals and databases. Though the development in the area of e-books is not so rapid, yet people have started realizing its potential as an efficient & effective tool for knowledge storage and dissemination. More and more publishers are now coming up with ebook solutions for academic institutions and libraries too have started to develop collection development policies for e-books. The production, dissemination and consumption of e-books will increase substantially when certain issues regarding universal standard and copyright are resolved and we are in a better position to handle the e-books. Libraries will also look forward to more affordable and useful subscription policy for acquiring electronic books. At present there are several formats for e-books, many softwares available for e-book reading. Like Open Access journals, there are many e-books projects which offer free online books for reading and downloading which have been discussed in the present paper. The paper also discusses the commercial e-book publishers and the advantages of ebook subscription for academic libraries.