Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2003 09:47:41 -0500
From: Carol Diedrichs <diedrichs.1@osu.edu>
Subject: May E-Book Conference in Ohio

The University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Blackwell's Book
Services, the OCLC Institute and OCLC's Digital & Preservation Cooperative
are pleased to co-sponsor

E-Book 2003: Print Collections, e-Books & Beyond

On May 8 & 9, 2003 in Dublin, Ohio, users, creators, and critics of
e-books will gather to examine how e-books have impacted the library and
publishing environments.  At the Ann Arbor e-books conference in 2001, a
number of speakers presented different visions of the extent, timing and
market-readiness for the proliferation of e-books.  In some cases, the
market has spoken and in others the jury is still out.  What more do we
now understand about the academic and popular market for e-books?

Speakers and panelists will address the following questions:

What are the cost components of producing and managing e-books,
including conversion, metadata, marketing, systems management, library
and end-user costs?  How do these costs compare with producing,
distributing, accessing and archiving scholarly information in the
traditional print mode?

To what extent are faculty and students making use of e-books and how
does this use compare to the experience of reading print?  What do
readers like about access to e-resources in general and what are
barriers to e-books becoming a predominant technology for scholarly
communication or recreational reading?

A number of research libraries, university presses, and commercial
content providers have converted significant portions of their legacy
collections and backlists to make them accessible in electronic form.
How are these historic corpora being used by scholars and popular
readers and is there a business model in place for these efforts to
encourage further conversation?

Keynote Speaker:  Bill Hill, Microsoft Research.  A former journalist
with The Scotsman, Bill Hill became involved in the emerging field of
desk-top publishing in the mid-1980's, as one of the five founding
employees of Aldus Corporation's European operations.  Shortly after
Aldus was taken over by Adobe in 1994, Hill was approached by Microsoft,
and was offered the job of running the company's typography group.
Since 1998, Hill has been working in Microsoft Research on the
electronic books project, specializing in screen readability.  An avid
reader, Bill Hill is an outspoken advocate of e-Books as a tool for
increasing literacy throughout the world.

Registration information, costs, the conference agenda and contact
information are available at http://www.oclc.org/institute/events/ebc.
For further information please contact Amy Lytle, Grants & Education
Coordinator, Digital & Preservation Cooperative at (800) 848-5878 x 5212
or via e-mail at amy_lytle@oclc.org

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Carol Pitts Diedrichs, Professor
Assistant Director for Technical Services and Collections
Editor, Library Collections, Acquisitions
          and Technical Services
The Ohio State University Libraries
1858 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus, OH, 43210-1286
tel: 614-292-4738
fax: 614-292-7859
Internet: diedrichs.1@osu.edu
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