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Canada says e-books are books, Adobe buys Glassbook

© Richard Loeffler

It was announced this week that the National Library of Canada will be issuing a unique International Standard Book Number (ISBN) to each electronic book. Previously ISBN were only being issued for print books. Unlike the United States, ISBN's are handled by the government and are free. One of the biggest complaints from electronic publishers has been not so much the high cost of ISBN's but the large blocks they are sold in. R. R. Bowker handles the distribution of ISBN's in the US and sells them only in blocks of 10,000. Most e-publishers complain that ten thousand ISBN's are too many for them to purchase or use.

In San Francisco this week at the Seybold publishing technology conference several surprise announcements were made by important companies in the electronic publishing industry. First Adobe Systems announce that it was buying Glassbook. This acquisition means that the elegant Glassbook Reader will meld with Acrobat Reader. This also means that with Glassbook's alliances with Barnes & Noble and iUniverse more PDF e-books will be available to readers. Future versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader will include elements from the Windows-based Glassbook Reader, including the main user interface, annotation and dictionary lookup features, and two-page spreads.

At the same venue, Amazon.com announced that Microsoft Reader will be the preferred format. Amazon will also develop an e-book store on their site much as BN.com did to promote the Microsoft Reader but no date has been set. Microsoft will create a customised Amazon.com version of Microsoft Reader, giving consumers the ability to purchase and download eBook titles directly from Amazon.com and read them in Microsoft Reader format. Consumers can download Microsoft Reader at no charge at www.microsoft.com/reader/. "Microsoft Reader is the first product to include ClearType display technology, a Microsoft innovation that greatly improves font resolution on LCD screens for users of desktop or laptop PCs running the Microsoft Windows® operating system as well as dedicated reading devices. In addition to incorporating the latest ClearType technology, Microsoft Reader strictly adheres to the traditions and benefits of fine typography. It provides a clean, uncluttered display; ample margins; full justification; proper spacing, leading and kerning; and powerful tools for bookmarking, highlighting and annotation."

This week in Japan the Electronic Books Publishing Association, a collaboration between eight major Japanese publishers, including Kodansha and Sinchosha, will launch an on-line e-book store this Friday at http://www.paburi.com. The Web site will initially feature downloads of 1,000 titles of popular novels that have fallen out of print. The books will sell for around $5 to $8. They are promising120 new titles to be added each month.

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