<nettime> ePublications versus PDF & on-line access for priviliged academics versus 'free learners'

[Tjebbe van Tijen <tjebbe@imaginarymuseum.org>]

SCRIBD.ORG my own & others libraries of texts/studies in ePublication  
format tested
October 6, 2009 by Tjebbe van Tijen

read the full text with the direct links on:
http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/scribd-org-my-own- 
others-libraries-of-textsstudies-in-epublication-format-tested/

A good format for recycling older texts and illustrated studies seems  
to be there almost. After the PDF format navigation and presentation  
enhancements, there are now on-line readers which offer the same and  
more functionality. A disadvantage of the PDF format is that when it  
is not just a few pages, but many, or even hundreds or a thousand  
pages or more, one has to wait till the downloading of the remotely  
stored PDF file has finished before reading is possible. One is often  
not sure if a chosen PDF file is really interesting enough and the  
browsability  of web pages, the option to quickly scan an information  
object for it;s possible interest, is not there. I have tested now  
two systems that offer free posting of documents scribd.org and  
issuu.com and though the interface of issuu.com is more elegant, its  
lack of being able to add metadata (bibliographical information is  
the old term) to an ePublication (the term SCRIBD is using = iPaper)  
made me choose for scribd.org. The latest text I posted is a study  
from 2001 on literary psycho-geography of Edo/Tokyoâ?¦

I have implemented here a special embedded link to the software of my  
blog (WordPress) that â??streamsâ?? the rendered (scaled) pages  
directly into a WordPress blog. To see the full functionality it is  
better and click the link button to the SCRIBD site itself.

[live rendering window with ePublications]

To my great surprise I discovered on scribd.org one of my favorite  
books on the enlightenment by Jonathan Israel â??Enlightenment  
Contested- Philosophy, Modernity and the Emancipation of Man  
1670-1752â?³, a full thousand or so pagesâ?¦ which may be on the  
limits of what this ePublication service is intended for.  
Nevertheless the uploader states his postings of books â??are intended  
for educational and familiarization purposes onlyâ?? and calls people  
to buy the book when they really intend to use it (the selling price  
is between 55 and 70 dollars at the moment) and what we have here is  
a fully searchable version of the book; just try out the right hand  
corner search box of the neat and very fast scribd.org web interface  
and you can hop through the thousand pages guided by a simple search  
term; like I did with the name â??van den endenâ?? (Franciscus van den  
Enden 1602-1674, one of the inspirational masters for Spinoza who  
started his liofe in Antwerp and was hung for conspiracy against the  
French state in 1672 in Paris a very much undervalued radical thinker  
with his free comonwealth as described in â??Vrye Politieke  
Stellingenâ?? 1665 and similar proposals to establish a free  
community  in what was than called â??Nieuw Nederlantsâ?? in 1665).
Have a try on it as long as this fabulous historical text can be  
searched at will and with such neatly contextual display of search  
results, something far beyond the old book and its paper index is on  
show. It is an interesting question whether authorship rights and  
copyright property of a publisher may be called in question by such  
free internet availability. In this case the content of the book  
frequently speaks about ways of common property, natural rights and  
equalitarian practices. Our new technologies of reproduction and  
distribution â?? as is shown concretely with the link below â?? do  
make it possible to freely share that what has only to be produced  
once (scientific and technological knowledge); it breaks down the  
barriers between a privileged academic class with its members only  
access to information and â??free learnersâ?? â?? like myself â?? that  
claim equal chances of being informed. For as long as it lasts, enjoy  
the book-link below hereâ?¦ and also you can even in this small format  
nicely do a search, that options is somewhat hidden so I add here a  
screendump with an explanation how to do all that..

[live rendering window with ePublications]


Tjebbe van Tijen
Imaginary Museum Projects
Dramatizing Historical Information
http://imaginarymuseum.org
web-blog: The Limping Messenger
http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/



#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org