Technical Landscape Exemplars and Recommendations

This report aims to describe some historical perspective on electronic publishing, leading up to why the “ebook revolution” has happened in the 2010s when it had failed to take hold before. We will describe some of the details of how digital books are authored, both in a scholarly context and in general ebook production terms. We have included in-depth coverage of the unexpected outcomes of ebook distribution, including issues of rights, royalties, copyright, academic impact, and the implications of limiting access to and reproduction of digital books. Finally, we review findings from a number of ebook pilot programs conducted in U.S. universities, and draw from the work done by the rest of the “JISCpub” team in uncovering possible future work that could be actionable and relevant to a scholarly publishing audience, with a goal towards providing better tooling for both authors and readers of scholarly works.