NISO Special E-book Issue of Information Standards Quarterly

["Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Cynthia Hodgson [mailto:chodgson@niso.org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 11:57 AM

The Spring 2011 issue of NISO's Information Standards Quarterly 
(ISQ) magazine has a special issue theme of Views of the E-book 
Renaissance. ISQ Guest Content Editor, October Ivins of Ivins 
eContent Solutions has pulled together a broad range of 
perspectives on what is happening today with e-books and 
particularly with e-book standards. As she states in her 
introductory letter: "Our goal for this issue of ISQ is to 
present an overview of the status of e-books from multiple 
perspectives-publishers and other content producers, librarians, 
and the many vendors who support their creation, management, 
sales, and distribution. Not coincidentally, it also illustrates 
the scope of the NISO community."

In the first feature article, Bill Kasdorf (Apex Content 
Solutions) provides an update on EPUB 3, the new generation of 
the EPUB specification just issued by the IDPF, and likens it to 
opening a Pandora's box, but where "all the creatures bursting 
out can be made to behave in a civilized way." This is followed 
with answers by Marlie Wasserman (Rutgers University Press) to 10 
questions on the state of e-book publishing for university 
presses.

Mollie M. Pharo and Marcia Learned Au describe the public library 
experience with e-books from their perspective over the last 
decade at the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library. Wendy Allen 
Sherburne (University of Illinois) provides an opinion piece on 
drinking the e-book Kool-aid in an academic library setting.

Mark Bide (EDItEUR) has written a standards spotlight feature 
where he discusses the challenge for standards in the e-book 
supply chain. Michael Gorrel (EBSCO Publishing) provides the 
member spotlight where he shares his company's plans for merging 
the recently acquired NetLibrary e-books with the EBSCOhost 
platform.

In NISO reports, Matt Garrish and Markus Gylling (DAISY 
Consortium) reveal the evolution of accessible publishing that 
occurred with the revision of the Z39.86 DAISY standard. The 
issue concludes with Noteworthy news items such as JSTOR's foray 
into e-books, ProQuest's acquisition of Ebrary, the Project Muse 
and UPeC partnership to offer e-books, the trial use issuance of 
the Journal Article Tag Suite standard (Z39.96).

"This special issue of ISQ emphasizes the growing importance of 
e-books throughout the library publishing and related information 
systems and services communities," states Todd Carpenter, NISO 
Managing Director. "While NISO is already engaged in e-books in a 
number of areas, we've announced in the issue the formation of a 
Special Interest Group on E-books, which will be exploring the 
larger context in which e-book related events are unfolding, 
facilitating cross-community dialogue and recommending areas
where NISO can foster standards or recommended practices."

ISQ is available in open access in electronic format on the NISO 
website. Both the entire issue and individual articles may be 
freely downloaded. Print copies are available by subscription, to 
NISO members who opt-in and as print on demand. For more 
information and to access the free electronic version, visit: 
www.niso.org/publications/isq.

Cynthia Hodgson
ISQ Managing Editor
National Information Standards Organization
Email: chodgson@niso.org