Article
wish to keep — possibly, for ever. Second, they can act as a
Electronic books and
libraries of the future
Philip Barker
Interactive Systems Research Group, School of
Computing and Mathematics, The University of
Teesside, Cleveland, UK
Abstract: Since their inception in the early 1980s
electronic books have grown substantially in popularity,
mainly due to their usefulness in distributing large volumes
of interactive multimedia information in theform of text,
pictures and sound. This paper describes the basic nature of
electronic books and the philosophy underlying their use. A
basic taxonomy of electronic books is then presented and a
description is given of the various techniques involved in
their design and fabrication. The paper concludes with a
description ofsome application case studies and an outline
ofsome possiblefuture directions ofdevelopment.
1. Introduction
Virtually everyone in a modern society is familiar with books.
Young children begin to explore simple picture books from
very early ages (about 12-18 months), thereby learning more
about the world they live in and the fantasy worlds that we
create for them. Subsequently, they learn to select the particu-
lar books that they wish to look at and acquire the skills
needed to turn the pages of the book and identify the objects
that are portrayed upon these pages. Later, as they grow older
and their skills develop further, children move from picture
books to illustrated story books, and subsequently to novels
and other forms of the printed word.
It is easy to see that books form an important part of human
culture. They are used to support a wide range of human acti-
vities such as education, entertainment, business and re-
search. Indeed, for many professions (such as law, engineer-
ing and science) books form the basic mechanism by which
information is stored and made available to others who may
wish to use it.
In functional terms, the purpose of books is thus twofold.
First, they can act as repositories for information which we
The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992
mechanism by which one person or a group of people, the
author(s), can communicate with another group of people, the
readers. The material that is stored and/or communicated
within the pages of a book may be fact or fiction.
Over the centuries, since the introduction of the printing
press, conventional books have played a fundamental role in a
wide range of information dissemination and knowledge
transfer activities. Some years ago we analysed the role of con-
ventional books in the process of technical knowledge dis-
semination (Barker & Manji 1988). We identified a number of
important limitations of such books (see Table 1) and sug-
gested that some new form of book was needed in order to
overcome the limitations of those that are printed on paper. We
used the term 'electronic book' to describe a new form of book
whose pages were composed, not from static printer's ink, but
from dynamic electronic information. Generally, we now use
this new term to describe information delivery systems that are
capable of providing their users with access to pages of reac-
tive electronic information with which they can interact As we
shall discuss later (Section 3.1), the pages of information
which make up an electronic book are conceptually organised
just like the pages of a conventional book.
Table 1: Basic limitations ofconventional books.
— difficult to reproduce
— expensive to disseminate
— difficult to update
— single copies cannot easily be shared
— easily damaged and vandalised
— bulky to transport
— embedded material is unreactive and static
— cannot utilise sound
— cannot utilise animation or moving pictures
— unable to monitor reader's activity
— cannot assess reader's understanding
— unable to adapt material dynamically
Obviously, the properties of a book will depend critically
on the medium in which it is published. Nowadays, three
basic media are commonly used for this purpose: paper, mag-
netic disc and optical disc. Unfortunately, publication on
paper renders the information embedded in a book static and
unreactive. In order to make its informationreactiveand dy-
namic the book concerned must be published on a suitable
interactive medium (Barker 1991b). Most electronic books
will therefore be published on either magnetic or optical stor-
age media. Two examples of electronic books that are pub-
139
lished on floppy disk are the County Durham Disc and the
Electronic Brochure. Although books published on magnetic
media are useful, they are not as useful as those that are pro-
duced using optical storage media. The substantial utility of
optical storage media arises from its large capacity, robust-
ness and relative cheapness. Two types of optical storage
media are commonly used for producing electronic books:
magneto-optical re-writable disc storage (Paris-Roth 1991)
and compact disc read-only-memory (CD-ROM) (Lambert &
Ropiequet 1986).
Although a considerable amount of work is undertaken
using rewritable optical disc (mainly for testing and prototyp-
ing purposes), the optical medium that is most often used for
electronic book publication is CD-ROM. As well as its dur-
ability and stability, the other attractive feature of CD-ROM is
its immense storage capacity. A single CD-ROM is able to
store a total of 650 Mb of information. This is equivalent to
about 1800 low-capacity 5¼" floppy discs!
The 650 Mb of storage available with a CD-ROM disc can
be used in a variety of different ways for the storage of multi-
media information such as text, sound, static pictures, anima-
tion, computer programs and a very limited amount of motion
video. Typical figures that are often quoted to reflect the stor-
age capacity of a CD-ROM disc are: 200 000 pages of A4 text;
or 20 000 low-quality (PCX) image files; or 2000 TV quality
still images; or 30 seconds of video; or 18 hours of low-quality
sound. The way in which the available storage is used within a
given electronic book production will depend critically on the
'media mix' needed by the particular publication concerned.
Obviously, the actual amount of material that can be stored
on a CD-ROM disc will depend upon whether or not any form
of data compression technique is applied to the information
before it is committed to storage. Normally, in order to store
full-motion video pictures on a CD-ROM, various types of
compression (and decompression) techniques must be ap-
plied. These are discussed in more detail later.
From the point of view of electronic book publication, the
most commonly-used CD-ROM format is that specified in the
ISO 9660 standard. This is an internationally recognised way
of storing information on a CD-ROM so that it can be read by
any computer system that has a suitable disc drive attached to
it. Unfortunately, the ISO 9660 standard does impose some
restrictions on what can be done with a CD-ROM disc. In
order to overcome these restrictions, several other approaches
to using CD-ROM are rapidly emerging. The four most im-
portant of these are: CD-ROM XA (extended architecture);
CD-I (compact disc interactive); CDTV (Commodore's Dy-
namic Total Vision); and DVI (Digital Video Interactive).
Each of these offers many exciting possibilities for the design
of electronic books. Some of the ways in which they can be
used will be discussed in subsequent sections of this paper.
2. A taxonomy of electronic books
Electronic books can be classified in a variety of different
ways, depending upon the medium that they are published on,
140
the functions they perform and the types of facilities and ser-
vices that they provide. One very simple taxonomy proposed
by Barker & Giller (1992d) categorises electronic books into
four basic classes: (1) archival; (2) informational; (3) instruc-
tional and (4) interrogational.
The first category of book offers a method of storing large
volumes of information relating to some particular subject
area. Within such books the end-user interface will normally
be designed to permit a variety of different methods of infor-
mation retrieval. Large catalogue systems and databases of
records and data come into this category: the Grolier Encyclo-
pedia and Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia are two
examples.
In many ways, electronic books that fall into the second
(informational) category overlap with those in the first. How-
ever, the stored information is usually less comprehensive and
more specific, relating to a particular topic area. An example
is the Oxford Textbook of Medicine on Compact Disc and an
example of a multimedia electronic book (containing text,
sound and pictures) is the Nimbus Music Catalogue.
The third category (instructional) is intended to provide a
means of achieving highly efficient and effective skill and
knowledge transfer mechanisms for the support of learning
and training activities. Users of these books are given the op-
portunity to learn and progress at their own pace using their
own particular style of learning. Some electronic books in this
category will actually assess and adapt to their user's personal
learning style. Such books automatically re-configure the ma-
terial that is presented so as to accommodate the user's
preferred approach to learning. Our Screen Design for Com-
puter-based Training (Barker et al. 1990, Giller 1992) is an
example of an instructional electronic book.
The last (interrogational) category of electronic book is
intended to support testing, quizzing and assessment acti-
vities which will enable readers to gauge their depth of knowl-
edge about a particular topic. This type of book contains three
essential components: a question (or exercise) bank; a testing
and assessment package; and an expert system. The latter is
used to analyse reader's responses and to deduce an appropri-
ate grade or level of competence based on them.
Although the four-category taxonomy described above is
useful, it is often advantageous to use one which is more fine-
grained. Barker (1991a, 1991b) has thus proposed a tax-
onomy that contains ten basic classes of electronic book. De-
pending upon the type of information that they embed and the
kinds of facility that they make available, electronic books
can be classified as: (1) text books; (2) static picture books;
(3) moving picture books; (4) talking books; (5) multimedia
books; (6) polymedia books; (7) hypermedia books; (8) intel-
ligent electronic books; (9) telemedia electronic books and
(10) cyberspace books.
These can be further sub-divided into two broad categories
depending upon the number of elementary communication
channels that they employ. Books in the first category (text
books, picture books and talking books) use a single channel
of communication whereas those in the second category (such
The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992
as multimedia, polymedia and hypermedia books) use
multiple communication channels.
As their name suggests, text books are composed of
pages of textual material that have been organised into suit-
ably sized chunks of information. The chunk size will de-
pend upon the screen size used for information display and
the number of chunks per page that it is required to present
simultaneously. Static picture books consist of a collection
of pictures that are organised into some particular theme;
the pictures may be of various qualities with respect to their
resolution and the range of colours that they involve. Mov-
ing picture books are constructed either from animation
clips or motion video segments (or combinations of each of
these); the mix used will depend upon a variety of factors
such as the purpose of the electronic book and the message
that it is to convey (Reimann 1992). Talking books depend
for their success upon recorded sound (both high- and low-
quality) used in conjunction with a variety of interactive
audio techniques to facilitate end-user control of informa-
tion and knowledge transfer.
Multimedia books use various combinations of two or
more communication channels (either in sequence or simul-
taneously) to encode a particular message. Such books use
text, sound, pictures and moving images that are basically
organised in a 'linear' fashion. The materials are delivered
by means of a single delivery medium (such as magnetic
disc or CD-ROM). Polymedia books, in contrast to
multimedia books, use a combination of several different
media (CD-ROM, magnetic disc, paper and so on) in order
to deliver their information to end-users. Hypermedia elec-
tronic books have much in common with multimedia books
in that they depend upon the use of multiple communication
channels; however, unlike multimedia books, hypermedia
books employ non-linear organisations of information
based upon the use of web-like structures (Barker 1992b).
Because of the embedded intelligence that they contain, in-
telligent books are in many ways similar to the 'interroga-
tional' books described by Barker & Giller (1992d). These
books are capable of dynamic adaptation as a consequence
of interaction with end-users.
Telemedia and cyberspace books are undoubtedly two of
the most exciting types of book that we are currently develop-
ing. The first of these uses telecommunication facilities to
augment the capabilities of a CD-ROM publication in order to
support highly interactive distributed distance learning activi-
ties (Barker 1992a, 1992c, Barker & Giller 1992c). Cyber-
space books provide their readers with access to various types
of virtual reality facility; they employ different kinds of inter-
active simulation environments in order to provide end-users
with participative, 'real-life' encounters that they would not
normally be able to experience.
Fundamental to each of the different types of electronic
book described above is the provision of (1) a suitable infor-
mation retrieval 'engine' (a software mechanism that re-
trieves information from the electronic book and presents it to
users by means of an appropriate display screen) and (2) a set
The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992
of end-user interfaces that enable users to access the infor-
mation held in an electronic book (Richards 1992). These in-
terfaces also allow end-users to control the way in which
screen-based information is presented. Interfaces are dis-
cussed further in the following section.
3. Electronic book production and access
The design, fabrication and dissemination of electronic books
on CD-ROM is rapidly becoming a major area of activity
within the publishing industry. Because of the importance of
this topic we recently embarked upon a research project to
investigate various aspects of electronic book production and
utilisation (Barker & Giller 1992a). Our electronic book pro-
ject (which commenced in 1990) was intended to explore the
use of digital optical storage media for the publication of elec-
tronic books. Two particular objectives that we had in mind
were (1) to try and formulate a set of design guidelines to
facilitate electronic book production (paying particular atten-
tion to the role of end-user interfaces) and (2) to assess the
potential of electronic books as a mechanism for the distribu-
tion of interactive training and learning resources for use in
distance education and flexible learning environments. This
paper concentrates only on the first of these objectives; the
second objective is described in detail elsewhere (Barker
1992a, 1992c, Barker & Giller 1992c).
Two basic types of digital optical storage media were ex-
plored: rewritable and read-only. The rewritable optical disc
storage facility was used primarily for experimental work in-
volving the prototyping of electronic books prior to their pub-
lication. The books themselves were published using CD-
ROM. All of our work was undertaken using basic CD-ROM
as defined in the ISO 9660 standard. While this limited us to
the use of text, sound, high-quality static pictures and slow-
motion (partial-screen) digital video we did not find this limi-
tation a serious disadvantage.
During our project two basic research and development
strands were pursued. The first of these involved an evalu-
ative study of a range of commercially-available electronic
book publications (such as the Grolier Encyclopedia and
Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia). The second strand in-
volved the design, production and controlled evaluation of a
number of in-house productions. Three different types of in-
house electronic book demonstrator were produced during
the course of the project. The three electronic books that we
developed were examples of (1) a hypermedia book (An Elec-
tronic Book for Early Learners); (2) a multimedia book
(Screen Design for Computer-based Training) and (3) an in-
telligent electronic book (A Static Picture Book with Audio
Narrations). Each demonstrator was designed to explore a
different aspect of electronic book production.
During our project we discovered that two basic types of
design tool were needed to facilitate electronic book produc-
tion. Thefirstof these forms a set of high-level design models
while the second constitutes a collection of more pragmatic
low-level 'tips' (or guidelines) relating to (1) end-user inter-
141
face design; (2) the way information is organised on CD- When designing electronic books we found that the basic
ROM and (3) the effective creation of access stations for use design model shown in Figure 2 was an extremely useful asset
with electronic books. (Barker 1990, Barker & Manji 1990, Giller 1992). A major
objective of the initial design phase is the formulation of the
end-user interfaces that will enable users to access the infor-
3.1. Models mation held within the book (Richards 1992). Book and page
Undoubtedly, the most important of our findings was the set structures then have to be decided upon (Barker 1991a) and
of three high-level development models that we formulated. the content of the book must be specified. Finally, the nature
We refer to these as the 'conceptual' model, the 'design' of the 'reader services' (browsers, bookmarks, glossaries,
model and the 'fabrication' model. The first of these is in- etc.) must be agreed upon. As can be seen from Figure 2, the
tended for end-users of electronic books (as an orientation use of a suitably designed knowledge corpus is fundamental
tool). The second and third models are intended for designers to the creation of our electronic books. CD-ROM's large ca-
and producers of electronic books as they describe architectu- pacity is ideal for storing multimedia and hypermedia knowl-
ral and procedural issues, respectively. edge corpora.
The conceptual model is illustrated schematically in Fig-
ure 1. It depicts an electronic book as being composed of a
series of pages of reactive and dynamic information. Each
page embeds a set of icons for basic operations such as 'next
page', 'previous page', 'goto page ...', 'exit', and so on.
These enable users to interact with the book and control the
way in which information is presented. These operations also
provide a means of accessing the various local and global
'reader services' that a book makes available, such as diction-
ary look-up, glossary access, and use of a notepad facility.

The creation of electronic books requires a number of dif-

ferent development stages which need to be rigorously ad-
hered to if efficient production is to be achieved. The fabrica-
tion model is therefore used to describe the relationships
between the various stages that are involved in transferring
materials from the initial development phase (based upon the
use of hard disk andre-writableoptical disc for CD-ROM
emulation) through prototyping through to the final produc-
tion stage (using read-only discs). Obviously, it is these latter
discs (in ISO 9660 format) that are distributed to users of our'

142 The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992

products. The fabrication model that we use to support our
electronic book productions is illustrated schematically in
Figure 3.
As can be seen from this figure the initial development
phase of an electronic book project involves specifying the
content and structure of the book; these are then brought
together by means of the scripting process. The script gives a
detailed specification of the material that is to be embedded
within the book (on a page by page basis) and the relationship
between the pages, control mechanisms and end-user tools
that are to be made available. It will also embed details of all
the textual, sonic and pictorial information that is needed for
the electronic book pages. The creation of the script will
therefore involve the simultaneous production of all the
multimedia resources needed for the book. Once these have
been created and individually tested the next phase of elec-
tronic book production can commence. This will involve in-
tegrating and synchronising the multimedia resources and (if
a hypermedia book is being produced) interlinking them in
appropriate ways.
When the integrating, interlinking and synchronising
phase of electronic book production is complete the evalu-
ation and testing phases can commence. This may involve the
generation of various kinds of prototype book. Once the re-
sults of the evaluation and testing have been obtained, any
final amendments can be incorporated before the final CD-
ROM product is mastered, replicated and distributed to users.
The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992
3.2. Guidelines
During the course of our research into electronic book pro-
duction we were able to formulate a range of useful design
guidelines. We took some trouble to document these as we
anticipated that they would be of help to other people who
might wish to become involved in electronic book produc-
tion. The series of guidelines that we produced fell naturally
into the following six basic categories: knowledge engineer-
ing; page design; interaction styles; end-user tools and ser-
vices; use of multimedia; and use of hypermedia. We will
describe the significance of each of these sets of guidelines
from the point of view of electronic book design; further de-
tailed descriptions of the guidelines themselves are given
elsewhere (Barker & Giller 1992b, Giller 1992).
3.2.1. Knowledge engineering. Knowledge engineering
refers to the tasks involved in creating the underlying knowl-
edge corpus upon which an electronic book depends; if this is
not built correctly then it will have a detrimental effect on the
book's ultimate performance.
3.2.2. Page design. Page design is important because it is
the pages of an electronic book that determine the ways in
which users 'see' and interact with the information and
knowledge embedded within it. There is a wide range of
possibilities for the design of page structures (Barker 199 la).
Naturally, the types of pages that are incorporated into any
given electronic book will depend very much upon the pur-
poses for which the book is intended and the nature of the
information and knowledge that it contains.
3.2.3. Interaction styles. The ways in which users are able
to interact with electronic books will depend upon the various
modes and styles of interaction that the designers make avail-
able. These will depend, in turn, upon the type of access sta-
tion that is provided for electronic book delivery (this topic is
discussed in Section 3.3). The use of a graphical user interface
to support electronic book interaction can be a very advan-
tageous way of proceeding, if it is feasible to provide one. Of
course, the actual interaction styles and modes used within
any given publication will depend significantly on the type of
information that is to be presented to the user — this may be
of a multimedia nature and it may be organised in either a
linear or a non-linear way.
3.2.4. End-user tools and services. Another very import-
ant aspect of electronic book design is the provision of a set of
end-user tools and services appropriate to the nature of the
publication, the tasks to be performed by the end-users and
the needs of the user population. While there will be many
types of tool and service that are specific to particular types of
electronic book, others will be of a more generic nature. In our
research we identified twelve generic types of facility that
might usefully be included in electronic books: retrieval
tools; browsers; bookmarks; notepad facilities; copy and
143
paste facilities; online help; tutorial modes; glossaries and
dictionaries; tracers; collectors; back-track facilities; and
navigation tools. Detailed discussions of each of these are
presented elsewhere (Barker & Giller 1992b, Giller 1992).
3.2.5. Multimedia. The use of multimedia techniques in
electronic books offers designers considerable scope and
many creative opportunities for the presentation of reactive
and dynamic information. In this context, four main types of
information have to be considered: text; static graphics;
sound and moving pictures.
3. 2. 6. Hypermedia. Hypermedia presentations from elec-
tronic books are similar to those based upon multimedia
methods, except for the non-linear ways in which informa-
tion is stored and accessed. Unfortunately, unless a suitable
authoring tool is used, linking hypermedia resources together
can be a lengthy and time consuming process.
3.3. Access stations
The success of any electronic book facility is crucially de-
pendent upon the availability of suitable access stations enab-
ling information to be delivered to end-users. At present, three
basic types of access station are used for electronic book de-
livery. The first of these (and undoubtedly the most popular)
is based upon the use of a conventional PC to which is at-
tached either an internal or an external CD-ROM drive. A
typical arrangement of this sort is illustrated schematically in
Figure 4.
This diagram shows how an external CD-ROM drive can
be used to deliver information to the screen of a PC. Provided
the PC is fitted with a modem facility and has access to a
suitable telecommunications network, it will be feasible to
144
use a workstation of this type to deliver the telemedia books
that were described earlier in this paper. Within the work-
station environment shown in Figure 4 it is important to ob-
serve how little physical desk-top storage space is needed for
the optical disc library; this often requires far less space than
is needed by a single conventional paper-based text book.
The second approach to electronic book delivery involves
interfacing a portable CD-ROM drive to a portable computer
system (Press 1992), meaning that electronic book delivery
can be done virtually anywhere where there is sufficient am-
bient light for the computer's LCD display to work (though
most LCD displays are now backlit anyway). The third ap-
proach to accessing information in electronic books involves
using special purpose delivery equipment such as the Dyna-
book (Press 1992) and the Sony Data Discman system (Rock-
man 1992).
The Sony Data Discman electronic book delivery system
is a portable, lightweight, personal electronic book player that
accesses information held on any Worldwide Standard Elec-
tronic Book. These books take the form of 3" optical discs
which are able to store up to 100 000 pages of text or 32 000
graphics images. The information is displayed on a high-
resolution (256 x 200 pixels) back-lit LCD screen measuring
67 x 56 mm. Textual information is displayed as a matrix of 10
lines, each of which contains 30 characters. Users interact
with the access station by means of a miniature keyboard (and
its associated function keys), a cursor control pad and two
special 'yes' and 'no' keys. The firmware that is built into
the system provides a range of information retrieval access
methods such as word search; endword search; keyword
search; menu search; multi-search and graphic search.
Obviously, there is considerable difference in display
bandwidth between the types of screen used in the Discman
system and those used in a conventional PC, which means that
the access station used to
deliver an electronic book
publication is likely to
have a considerable effect
on the way books are de-
signed and the quality of
the information that can be
presented to end-users.
4. Application case
studies
The previous sections of
this paper have described
the basic nature of elec-
tronic books and the types
of delivery station that are
needed in order to access
them. This section now de-
scribes a number of exam-
ples of electronic book
systems. Seven outline
The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992
case studies are presented. The first four of these represent Some of the more important of these tools are the help facility;
examples of commercially-available electronic books while the back-track mechanism; notepads; the bookmark tool and
the last three provide examples of electronic book publica- facilities for cutting and pasting from the encyclopedia to a
tions that have been produced in our research and develop- personal notepad.
ment laboratory. Because of these types of facility (particularly, in the case
of this product, the researcher's assistant), electronic books of
this sort are capable of providing extremely powerful interac-
4.1. The Grolier Encyclopedia
tive learning environments, capable of achieving high de-
The Grolier Encyclopedia on CD is an example of an elec- grees of student motivation, extremely effective learning
tronic book that provides information retrieval and notepad mechanisms and efficient methods of knowledge transfer.
facilities. The Grolier system contains all 21 volumes of the
paper-based Academic American Encyclopedia on one side of
a single CD-ROM disc. Essentially, the disc contains (1) an 4.3. Computer Library
alphabetical index of titles; (2) an index of every discrete
As well as being used for publishing encyclopedias, elec-
word in the encyclopedia (apart from noisewords such as 'an',
tronic book technology is now also being used to support a
'and', 'the', and so on); and (3) the full-text of more than
wide range of information dissemination and retrieval ser-
30 000 articles (which amounts to more than 9 million words).
vices. Computer Library (now called Computer Select) is one
There are three basic ways of accessing the information on
example of an on-going information dissemination/retrieval
the disc: browsing the word index (which contains 136 750
service provided by Lotus Development Corporation and the
entries); browsing the title index (which has 30 000 entries);
Ziff Communications Company. The CD-ROMs issued by
and Boolean search using the word index. Both the word and
Computer Select give immediate access to information on a
title indexes provide direct access to the parts of the encyclo-
wide range of computer-related products and topics such as
pedia that contain items of interest. Although these indexes
product specifications, reviews, technical tips, manufac-
are useful retrieval aids the word search facility is undoubted-
turer's profiles and industry news. They contain material that
ly the most powerful means of accessing stored information.
is extracted from more than 140 computer technology and
Retrieval is based upon word locality. Aquery may contain up
business publications. Using this system it is possible to re-
to four words. All words in a query must be in the same lo-
trieve specifications of over 67 000 hardware, software and
cality if a section of text is to be successfully retrieved. There
data communications products, and more than 11 000 manu-
are facilities for specifying the size of the locality, specifying
facturers' profiles.
the importance of word order and including NOT logic.
Computer Select consists of six sections which between
them cover full-text articles and abstracts, hardware and soft-
4.2. Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia ware product profiles, company profiles, a glossary of com-
puter and telecommunications terms and an online User's
The Grolier encyclopedia that was described in the previous
Guide. The retrieval software is on the CD-ROM itself and
section is essentially an 'all text' publication. In contrast,
does not have to be installed before being used. Both word
Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia is a truly multimedia
searching and field searching can be undertaken. Word (or
production in that it combines text, sound and pictures. As
phrase) searching is similar to that provided with the Grolier
well as containing the text of the 26 volumes of the paper-
Encyclopedia — the usual Boolean operators being allowed
based encyclopedia, the CD-ROM version also contains over
in order to refine the specificity of a search. Typical field sear-
15 000 pictures (photos, illustrations, maps, graphs and
ches might involve author, company name, product type,
charts); 45 animated sequences; a dictionary; and 60 minutes
topic and so on.
of audio recordings (typically: music, speeches and special
The search software is very easy to use and retrieval is fast
sound effects).
and efficient. Once a user has gained familiarity with the sys-
The information contained in the encyclopedia can be ac-
tem the number of keystrokes involved in entering a search
cessed by eight different Exploration Paths, or entry points,
query can be significantly reduced through the use of acceler-
that are presented in the form of a graphical user interface.
ator keys.
Entry paths are represented by icons within the main menu
area. Selection of a particular icon enables a specific type of
research to be undertaken. The eight exploration paths avail-
4.4. Discis Talking Books
able are idea search; title finder; topic tree; picture explorer;
history timeline; world atlas; science feature articles and re- The Discis Knowledge Research Corporation in Canada has
searcher's assistant. produced a range of multimedia electronic books on CD-
In addition to providing access to the eight exploration ROM. Typical examples of Discis publications include Cin-
paths the main menu screen also provides an area that con- derella, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and The Tale of Peter
tains a set of icons which allows access to the various reader Rabbit. Discis books are examples of talking picture story
services, or tools, that the encyclopedia makes available. books which are intended for children aged 3-9.

The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992 145

 Each book appears visually on the screen of the computer
just like an ordinary book would appear when it is held open
for reading. The screen area is divided into two parts, one for
the left-hand page and one for the right-hand page of the book
being displayed. The pages usually embed high-quality col-
oured pictures, text and control icons.
An important component of the text pages is the loud-
speaker icon which enables the 'talking book' option to be
turned on or off. When talking book mode is switched on the
text of the story is read aloud to the user in English (or a
foreign language) with (or without) automatic page turning.
At any point in the story the user can turn audio narration off
or stop it temporarily and ask for a repeat pronunciation of a
word, phrase or sentence. During the telling of a story various
sound effects and musical accompaniments are presented in
order to reinforce the realism and also set up an ambience for
its presentation. The sound effects and audio narration are
done digitally and stored on the CD upon which the electronic
book is published.
One of the attractive features of the Discis books is the way
in which it is possible to tailor them to the particular needs of
individual users. This involves a customisation facility which
enables a user to specify various settings for the book in ques-
tion. Typical customisation parameters include: sound and
speech volume, language options, the text display parameters
to be used (for example, font, size, style, line spacing and so
on) and the way in which various tools and icons are to oper-
ate.
Discis books are produced to a very high standard, both in
terms of the high quality of the sound and graphics and the
ability to customise individual products in various ways. In-
deed, in these respects, Discis publications are currently un-
rivalled.
4.5. An electronic bookfor early learners
As part of a research project dealing with electronic book
production, we created a CD-ROM for early learners (Barker
& Giller 1990). The mechanisms underlying its design and
fabrication were identical to those described earlier in this
paper. The book was intended to be a participative hyperme-
dia story book which would teach early learners about the
letters of the English alphabet. Participation is done through
interactive games and quizzes. In order that the book could
also be used with children that have (or who are acquiring) a
reading ability, the electronic book also contains hypertext
stories.
Children control the book by means of screen-based icons
that represent the concepts of 'next page'; 'previous page';
'tell me a story'; 'show me more pictures'; 'play a game' and
so on. Pages of the book are accessed and manipulated entire-
ly by pointing operations made on the screen of the delivery
station. Two illustrative examples of pages from this elec-
tronic book are given in Figures 5 and 6 — Figure 5 shows the
'Contents' page for the book and Figure 6 illustrates the 'root
page' for subsequent pages containing the material relating to
146
the letter S. The root page is arrived at as a result of pointing to
the letter S on the Contents page. The very positive and sup-
portive reactions to this electronic book (by both children and
teachers) in the schools where we have undertaken evaluation
studies have been extremely encouraging. The first version of
this electronic book was based primarily on the use of hyper-
text and static hyperimages. We are currently developing a
new edition in which we also hope to include sound effects
(audio narrations) and animation.
4. 6. Screen design for computer-based training
As well as being important in the context of information
archival, electronic books form a useful instructional re-
source. Like conventional books, they can be used to support
a variety of learning and training applications. However, be-
cause of their reactivity and adaptability, electronic books are
likely to have far more pedagogic potential than conventional
books. Because they are capable of tutoring students interac-
tively and assessing their performance, electronic books are
able to exhibit many of the properties formerly only available
through computer-based training (CBT) software.
In order to explore the instructional potential of electronic
books we have produced a prototype publication entitled
Screen Design for Computer-Based Training (Barker et al.
1990). This book attempts to teach users about good screen
design practice for CBT. The book is organised into twelve
chapters, each one covering some aspect of screen design.
The topics in the book include use of colour; functional areas;
use of text; use of pictures; icon design; use of windows and
menus; interaction techniques; a case study and a design exer-
cise. Each chapter concludes with a quiz and an assessment of
the reader's understanding of the material that has been
presented.
Screen Design for Computer-Based Training represents an
interesting and exciting way of disseminating interactive in-
structional resources. Because of the importance of this ap-
proach in the context of open and distance learning, this pub-
lication plays a major role in our current research into the use
of telemedia books for the support of flexible learning using
CBT methods (Barker & Giller 1992c; Giller 1992).
4. 7. Thesis publication on CD-ROM
Digital optical storage media in the form of CD-ROM makes
a substantial amount of robust, reliable, highly portable stor-
age available with which to facilitate the electronic publi-
cation of multimedia documents. As we have suggested ear-
lier in this paper, such documents might contain text, sound,
static pictures, moving images (both animation and digital
video), executable computer programs and a range of retrie-
val engines to facilitate rapid and easy access to the stored
information.
In order to overcome the limitations imposed by the con-
ventional paper-based approach to the publication of disserta-
The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992
 tables of a conventional
thesis across to CD (Giller
1992). This basic material
was then augmented by a
range of demonstration
software which was pro-
duced during the course of
the research. In order to re-
trieve information from the
CD-ROM a full-text retrie-
val package (called Rom-
ware) was also put on the
CD-ROM along with all
the inverted files needed to
support it.
We intend to use the
CD-ROM described above
in order to assess the use-
fulness of the electronic
thesis in comparison to a
conventional thesis. The
three factors that we intend
to investigate are (1) the
ease and comprehensive-
ness of information retrie-
val; (2) general ease of use;
and (3) the added value as-
sociated with having dem-
onstration software and
other dynamic material in-
stantly available to users of
the thesis. Another import-
ant question that we hope
to explore is the general
utility of CD-ROM as a
thesis publication medium
for the bulk dissemination
of research findings.

5. Future directions —
new roles for libraries
Earlier in this paper we
emphasised the important
role of books as both a stor-
age and a communication
medium. As a result of this
dual functionality two
basic types of book have
become very popular: per-
sonal notebooks and pub-
tions and theses, we have recently been exploring the potential lished books. Personal notebooks are used to store ideas,
of CD-ROM as a publication medium for multimedia disserta- memories and facts that are of importance to their individual
tion work produced by graduate students involved in advanced owners. On the other hand, published books are used to con-
research projects (Barker et al. 1992). Our first thesis publica- vey ideas, facts and other important information to a broader,
tion on CD-ROM involved transferring the text, diagrams and global audience. Until recently, both types of books have re-

The Electronic Library, Vol. 10, No. 3, June 1992 147

lied heavily on the use of paper as the storage and publication 6. Conclusion
medium. Paper is an important medium because of its ease of
The history of publication started as long ago as when stone
use and its relatively low cost. Unfortunately, despite these
tablets were used for making public laws and other types of
very attractive features, paper-based books (and libraries
information for the common good. Stone was followed by the
based upon them) do have a number of limitations.
use of wood, papyrus, parchment and paper. Paper has proved
We have mentioned some of these limitations in this ar-
to be an extremely valuable publication medium because of
ticle. In order to overcome some of them we have intro-
the ease with which documents can be produced (via the print-
duced the idea of electronic books as a means of storing,
ing press), copied (by means of a photocopier) and trans-
sharing and communicating large volumes of dynamic
mitted from one location to another (by means of fax
multimedia information. Provided they are suitably de-
systems). Indeed, the development of the printing press, the
signed, electronic books are capable of emulating each of
photocopier and the fax represent important milestones in the
the roles that conventional books play. They can be used as
history of printing and publication.
portable personal notebooks and they can be used for the
Electronic books represent another major milestone in the
publication of material that is to be distributed to a global
history of publication. Although they show many conceptual
audience. Of course, electronic books can also extend the
similarities to conventional books, they differ in two fun-
functionality of books in many important ways — primar-
damental ways from books that are published on paper; first,
ily, as a result of the ease with which information can be
in their dependence upon enabling access station techno-
dynamically shared between many people. Many new types
logies for the reading and writing of information and second,
of book can therefore be developed — for example, shared
in the ease with which the dynamic multimedia information
notebooks and dynamic adaptable books that can automat-
that they embed can be transformed, processed and shared at
ically configure themselves to the needs of particular
relatively low cost. Depending upon the nature of the infor-
groups of users. Unfortunately, electronic books do suffer
mation that they embed and the ways in which this informa-
from a major limitation — the need for some form of access
tion is used we have suggested that electronic books can be
facility. Such a facility is required in order to enable users
classified into ten basic categories. These categories range in
both to read and write electronic information.
sophistication from simple text books through intelligent
Because of the advent of electronic books and the growing
electronic books to cyberspace books. The taxonomy that has
demand for access to them, libraries of the future will need to
been suggested is by no means static and is likely to expand as
provide mechanisms by which users are able to use and inter-
new types of book are discovered.
act with both paper-based and electronic publications. Such
An important consequence of the emergence of electronic
interaction is likely to be achieved using polymedia worksta-
books is the changes that they will initiate within library sys-
tions similar to that illustrated in Figure 4. This shows how
tems. As well as continuing to cater for conventional paper-
conventional paper-based books and various forms of elec-
based books, the need to accommodate electronic books will
tronic book based upon optical and magnetic storage facilities
necessitate the conversion of libraries into sophisticated
can be used simultaneously to access information from a
polymedia, polyfunctional organisations. Such libraries will
number of different sources.
not only cater for the needs of local users but must also be
Using telecommunications facilities it will be possible to
capable of catering for global communities of remote online
link together workstations of the type shown in Figure 4 in
users.
many exciting ways, so as to achieve the global and dynamic
sharing of information. Obviously, the easiest way of achiev-
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Philip Barker
Philip Barker is Professor of Applied Computing and Re-
search Director of the Interactive Systems Research Group
within the School of Computing and Mathematics at Teesside
Polytechnic. His research group is actively involved in re-
search in human-computer interaction; knowledge engineer-
ing; applications of artificial intelligence (particularly, auto-
matic identification using neural network systems) and the
design of interactive learning systems. He has published sev-
eral books and many papers within each of these areas.
149