e-Book

          An e-Book (short form of electronic book) is an e-text that forms the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. E-books are usually read on personal computers or smart phones or dedicated hardware devices known as e-book readers or e-book devices. Many mobile phones can also be used to read e-books.

Comparison of e-Books with Printed Books

1.    E-book readers are more fragile than paper books and more susceptible to physical damage.

2.    E-book readers can malfunction and e-books can be damaged due to faults in hardware or software.

3.    E-book readers are more likely to be stolen than paper books.

4.    Depending on the device, an e-book may be difficult to read in bright sunlight.

5.    Most publishers don’t produce the e-book equivalent of their printed books. In other cases the product quality is lower or it is released later.

6.    E-books can be easily hacked through the use of hardware or software modifications and widely disseminated on the internet and / or other e-book readers, without approval from the author or publisher. This ease of piracy is a significant drawback for publishers.

7.    If an e-book device is stolen, lost, or broken beyond repair, all e-books stored on the device may be lost. This can be avoided by backup either on another device or by the e-book provider.

8.    There is a loss of tactility and aesthetics of book-bindings. Also lot is the ability to very quickly riffle through the pages to search for a particular section or to get a sense of the book merely by sight.

9.    Screen resolution of reading devices may be lower than actual paper.

10.                       Due to the digital rights management reselling or lending out an e-book may have complications.

11.                       Some books available as e-book cannot be read on some e-book readers because they are not supplied in a format those readers allow.

12.                       While printed books remain readable for ages, changing technologies and less durable electronic storage media require e-books to be copied to a new carrier after some years.

13.                       E-book readers require various substances to produce, and are an environmental hazard as they are non-biodegradable.

14.                       Physical discomfort for some users, including eye strain.

15.                       More expensive, whereas used books are cheaper and most often only a few hundred rupees can be lost or stolen at one time.

16.                       A book will never break, but an e-book device can break, and a lot of money can be lost at one time.

17.                       One will never read thousands of books really well or over a short period of time, so the high amount held on an e-book reader becomes irrelevant.

18.                       A book is safe from electromagnetic pulses and overloads.

19.                       A whole paper book is never broken beyond repair, unless entirely burnt or decayed.

Production of e-Books

          Some e-books are produced simultaneously with the production of a printed format, as described in electronic publishing, though in m any instances they may not be put on sale until later. Often, e-books are produced from pre-existing hard-copy books, generally by document scanning, sometimes with the use of robotic book scanners, having the technology to quickly scan books without damaging the original print edition. Scanning a book produces a set of image files, which may be additionally be converted into text format b an OCR programme. Occasionally, as in some e-text projects, a book may be produced by re-entering the text from a keyboard.