The World's First Automated Reader: A History of E-Books - Research Paper

Introduction

An electronic book can be termed as a text-based publication which may also contain graphs and images that is presented in digital form. E-Books are stored as electronic files, and due to their design, they can only be accessed through electronically compatible devices like a computer or an e-Reader. Although the use of eBooks has been greatly embraced today due to their convenience and massive storage capacity, they date back to the 40s.

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The first automated reader in the world, which is the pioneer of today's e-Readers, was invented in Spain by a woman, Angela Ruiz Robles, in 1949. Angela Ruiz Robles, a school teacher, developed the innovative idea of having watched her students carry textbooks to and from school every day. She, therefore, thought that instead of her students carrying the various books, it would be much easier for them to carry the reader. Her reader was operated by compressed air and was comprised of few texts that were printed onto spools. However, Angela was not able to acquire a feasible patent on the design, and her idea was not embraced for mass production (Lebert, np).

In 1971, a student at the University of Illinois named Michael Hart was given unlimited access to a huge Xerox mainframe computer in the materials research lab (Lebert, np). During this time, the machine was mainly used to process data, although it was connected to ARPAnet. Since there were only a few people on the internet, Michael Hart decided to use that opportunity to come with something constructive whereby he drew his inspiration from a copy of the Declaration of Independence he was given on July 4 at a grocery store on his way to the local fireworks. Hart used the computer to type the text in capital letters since there was no lower-case option then. He then sent a message on ARPAnet indicating that the text was available to download. As a result, the first e-book in the world was born, and six people downloaded the text. Later on, Hart typed more texts which included the American Constitution and the Christian Bible and made them electronically available. Therefore, Hart invented the idea of using computers to share information and literature. BiblioBytes then became the first company to design a financial exchange system whereby they launched a website to sell e-books through the internet in 1993 (Lebert, np). In 1999, American publisher Simon & Schuster became the first trade publisher to publish titles in both print format and e-book. Although the use of e-books has become common today due to their many advantages and promoting new and interesting ways for people to consume different content, they have not entirely replaced physical books.

An e-book is a data file which is similar to a word-processing document when it comes to content and structure. As such, it encompasses all the text and images of a book and maybe in three main file types. These types include the epub, the portable Document Format (PDF) developed by Adobe, and the mobi mostly used in Amazon kindle as well as other related devices. The e-book files contain a layout that makes an e-book page look like a printed book. In addition, the commonly used e-book reading devices can only read either epub or Mobi formats but not both whereas some can also read PDFs. E-books can be purchased from bookseller's website like Amazon or Noble and even directly from the sites of authors and publishers (Lebert, np).

Additionally, one can purchase an e-book using a reader device whereby you first pay for the e-book, then download it before you can read. Once the download is complete, the e-book is saved in the device's internal library, and the device portrays the title and covers art for all e-book titles that have been downloaded. To open the e-book you ought to tap on its graphic icon, and the device will automatically display the content one page at a time. The buttons on the e-book reader are used to turn the pages. The reader can also highlight complex words to view a dictionary definition as well as increase the size of the text to make it easy to read. Again, when reading the e-books, no need to worry about losing the last read page if you decide to switch to a different e-book as the reader device keeps track of it. Replacement of lost or stolen e-book is also allowed by the sellers, and you can also opt to download the e-book reader on a different device. The booksellers can replace these e-books because they maintain a database of all their e-books as well as the customers who bought them (Lebert, np).

Most e-books that are sold by major publishing companies come along with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. The DRM software is tailored to hinder illegal copying of e-books. Although the DRM is contained in the e-book file, it does not interfere with a person's reading experience, but it effectively locks the contents of a book preventing the reader from modifying or copying the text (Agnew, p. 323). However, if a publisher quits the business, this implies that the DRM is no longer valid; therefore, the e-books erase themselves from your device, making it a major drawback of the e-book technology.

E-books have many advantages and a high degree of adaptability that has made them be preferred over their analog predecessors which are the traditional print books. One of the benefits is that e-books are more portable than traditional print books as they are very light and can store many books. As such, it is easy to carry the devices around even while traveling. For traditional printed books if you forget the book you want to read at home or in the office you have to wait until you get to where you left. For the e-book technology, all you need is to have the digital eBook collection synced to a cloud service, and you can read the eBooks from the phone (Wilber, np). Another advantage is that acquisition of eBooks can be made at the comfort of your home or any place by purchasing them directly from a digital bookstore and later downloading them instantly to your device. In addition, e-Reading devices ease access to books that one would not be able to read since most of the independent and self-published authors find it efficient to avail their work in digital format rather than publishing them as print books. Again, e-books readers allow for one to customize the font, size, style, and even brightness, thus making the reading experience useful and exciting (Wilber, np).

There exists a strong connection between the right to privacy and the freedom to read that compel the librarians to protect and defend the reader privacy (Belmas, p.233). Again, this responsibility of librarians to keep library user's information confidential is affirmed by both the Library Bill of Rights and the ALA Code of Ethics (Belmas, p.238). However, e-Book technology places the library users' privacy at risk since e-readers keep a record of users' activities which include highlighted phrases, search terms, and the read pages. If these records are stored on the vendor's server, which is mostly the case, they can be used against the reader as evidence of intent where they are subject to discovery by law enforcement.

E-Books are mostly used in the education sector to facilitate learning. With the increased technological advancements in the world, today children are more familiar with the electronic devices, therefore, making it easy to use e-books to educate them as also improve reading habits for the slow learners. The extent of use of e-Books spreads out to most of the developing countries which seek to change the narrative of how they educate their learners (Scott, p. 10-14).

Although eBook ideology was invented in the 40s, the technology is underdeveloped meaning that it is yet to undergo a long process of change and adaptation. Due to the capacity of electronic devices such as smartphones, iPad, and kindle fire which have the capability of delivering rich, colorful and interactive displays, eBooks will become dull and seem old-fashioned as they are merely texts displayed in electronic form. The future outlook of eBook technology will, therefore, be similar to an app which will be more social, flexible, and allow sharing. Again, there will be the possibility of producing audiobooks that will incorporate voice technology (Holmes, np).

Works Cited

Agnew, Grace. "The technology of digital rights management." Digital Rights Management, 2008, pp. 295-356.

Belmas, Genelle, et al. Major Principles of Media Law, 2017. Cengage Learning, 2016.

Holmes, Paul. The First E-Book from the Future: A Glimpse Into the Future of Our World. Createspace Independent Pub, 2012.

Lebert, Marie. A Short History of EBooks. 2009.

Scott, David. "E-books in further education." E-books in Education: Realising the Vision, 2014, pp. 9-14.

Wilber Jennifer, 10 Reasons Why eBooks Are Better Than Print Books. Owlcation Publications, 2018, August 12.