Abstract

Book digitization is having a significant impact at all economic, business and legal levels. Concepts that had prevailed since the advent of the printing press more than 500 years ago have to be changed. With self-publishing, authors do not need publishers, and some indie (independent) are getting an enthusiastic public reception, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. For their part, publishers, who traditionally had been confined to one language and one territory, can easily reach a global scale with the advent of the e-book. Large multinational companies like Amazon and Apple have already landed in Europe, and soon they will arrive in the rest of the world. The e-book is not only a change from paper to digital but is also having a substantial impact on reading habits.

Abstract

The electronic book, understood as a digital file, has entered the Spanish publishing scene and caused a variety of changes, both within publishing companies and in the relationship between the publishers and other players in the traditional book value chain. We describe these changes, in addition to the challenges that the publishers will face to meet the new e-books demand. In addition, to systematize the level of alignment between publishers and electronic books, a five-level scale is proposed. Its detailed description provides an overview of the current situation of Spanish publishers in relation to e-books.

Abstract

When the Latin America and the Caribbean Social Sciences Network of Virtual Libraries was created 10 years ago, it was an easy decision to work with open software because the Latin America and the Caribbean Social Science Council (Clacso), an academic network with 195 member institutes located in 21 countries, promotes the use of open software and open access to communicate and exchange research results in digital formats. The development and daily operations of this cooperative digital library are described, including Greenstone for the reading room with advanced search capacity and Plone for the graphical interface; both allow decentralized content management with 9.000 full text publications (books, journal articles, working documents, papers) and databases.

Abstract

In the publishing sector, electronic book growth figures have shown progressive consolidation in markets around the world. The electronic book evolution in the last 15 years shows the paradoxes and contradictions that every new technology has to address in its implementation process. In addition, the editorial industry is resistant to new business models due to the possibilities of piracy and the fragility of a system in full transition. And, although digital reading is on the upswing and shows undoubted progression, the print book remains central to publishing and continues to maintain strongly competitive odds with the new systems.