The Future of Books on the Web

These Slides are Available on the Web

See: https://prototypo.github.io/2017/CAUL-20170712/slides/index.html

(Slides are in HTML)

Content or Form or Both?

• Form: Galileo's 1613 work on sunspots, Istoria e Dimostrazioni Intorno alle Macchie Solari
• Contents: Nearly everything else

Books

Books

Which of these can we do on the Web?

EPUB 3.1 is a very mature specification

• Widely used format for digital publication
• A truly portable and non-proprietary format
• The standard format for digital books…
• …but can be also be used for magazines, journal articles, documentation, etc.

Books with lots of illustrations…

Scientific presentations

Art books

Mangas

Technical books

Books with different character sets and writing directions

…conference proceedings

…journals or magazines (articles)

…official reports of all kinds

In fact, just about anything!

Well, at least one of the secrets…

• EPUB is based on Web Technologies like HTML, CSS, SVG, JS, etc.
  • collectively referred to as the “Open Web Platform” (OWP)
• No separate rendering, formatting, etc., specification had to be defined
• Instead, EPUB relies on specifications defined by W3C and deployed in browser engines

Rough structure of an EPUB file

A good example

• The image on the right is displayed through that translucent “screen”
• This is not done through some separate image processing step
• Instead, it is based on some complex CSS features (implemented in browsers but also in EPUB readers)

The Web can learn from publishers

• Some features, needed by publishing, are missing from the OWP; such as:
  • pagination, page controls for headings, page numbers
  • graphics transition effects (needed in, e.g., mangas, cartoons, children books)
  • structuring information of complex documents
  • taking into account the typesetting requirements of different cultures (French, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese,…)
• W3C has a Digital Publishing Interest Group to look into these issues and cooperate with the relevant W3C groups

Publishers can learn from the Web

• For example:
  • dynamic tools and libraries, deployed on the Web, would be beneficial in publishing
  • use external services on the Web via extra protocols
  • new Web authentication or payment methods could change the way publications are accessed
  • new device APIs could be used by dedicated software on devices
  • etc.

There are two major areas that need work:

1. Allow access anywhere: books should be able to be read offline or online
2. Treat books as books: books are packages of content, not just a list of components

The current Web is bad at both of those. We can fix that.

Packaging a digital book

• An entire book should be archivable (e.g. in a national library)
• The publication needs to be checked for integrity as a whole (e.g., in a legal publication)
• Sharing a publication requires the concept of the publication as a whole
• Publishing and library business models are based on the concept of “works”

What we get today… format conversions

How to do better:
scholarly publishing example

• What if the same paper was published as a single package that would display online or offline?
• What if the paper was adaptable to its reading environment?
  • e.g. no more two column, fixed layout on a phone
• The “paper” may also contain video, audio, data, programs…
  • scholarly publishing is not just text any more!

Need for the concept of a “publication” of many resources

• A publication may consist of many resources (text, images, videos, etc)
• On the Web, these are linked together, but they keep their complete “independence”
• For publishing the abstract “work” should be a single, conceptual unit on the Web: a Web Publication (WP)

What would a "Web Publication" do for us?

• Value counters (counters, section numbering, footnotes, endnotes, etc.) should be consistent across the publication
• Any search, text analysis, etc., facility for a book should have access to the full publication
• User preferences should apply to the “work” rather than to a single Web page

How does that translate to the Web?

• The current Web builds on the notion of a single resource:
  • HTML source, metadata, CSS style sheet, etc.
  • each has its own URL
• Rendering is based on the interoperation of many such resources

How does that translate to the Web?

• A WP is a collection of Web resources, considered as a single Web resource
  • this means there is a unique Web address for the collection
  • the same WP can be offline or online with the same address
• Web Publications are part of the Web!

Envisioned architecture:
online

Envisioned architecture:
offline

Books

Packaged Web Publications (PWP)

• For a large number of use cases Web Publications (essentially, online/offline reading) is all they really need
  • e.g., scholarly journals, online magazines, brochures
• But a number of use cases rely on an extra step: to “pack” the content of a WP into a single file
  • archival, library distributions,…
  • extension of the current business model of trade publishers (built on EPUB)
  • Identifying and tracking the "appropriate copy"

A layer “on top” of WPs

• Packaging means collecting all the content of a WP into a single file
• Some additional issues to be handled:
  • special entries to the manifest
  • archival format(s)
  • etc.
• A specific “profile” for WP may have to be defined for a PWP

Structure of an EPUB3 file

A Packaging of a Web Publication

• A Packaged Web Publication may have a very similar structure
• But moving to the Web would probably require to rethink the format of the administrative files
  • e.g., manifest would be in JSON
  • structure of metadata may different
  • maybe re-think the packaging format itself
  • etc.

PWP packaging structure

A PWP Processor

• PWPs may be handled by dedicated applications
• But the concept of a WP processor can be extended to a PWP processor, unpacking content on the fly
  • security considerations must be handled, though

A PWP Processor

Books

Most things are the same!

• Important to note that the content of a PWP and EPUB 3 are essentially identical
  • usage of HTML, CSS, SVG, etc.
• The main change is the “administrative” aspect of the publication (locators, manifest, etc)
• PWP should be viewed as an evolution of EPUB for a more inclusive reading experience.

Development process

• EPUB was developed at the IDPF, Web Technologies were developed at the W3C
• Strong cooperation exists since 2013 (e.g., in W3C’s Digital Publishing Interest Group)
  • many of the ideas around PWP were developed at W3C, with strong presence of experts from IDPF

W3C and IDPF Merger

• W3C merged with EPUB's parent, the International Digital Publishing Forum, in January 2017.
• The merged brand is W3C.
• Future EPUB versions and additional work to be performed within the W3C Publishing Activity.
• Latest news at https://www.w3.org/publishing/

Now that IDPF and W3C have merged:

• maintenance of EPUB 3.1 will continue at W3C
• future development (of PWP and others) will be part of the W3C Publishing Activity

Some references

Latest WP Editors' draft:

https://w3c.github.io/wpub/

Latest PWP Use Cases and Requirements draft:

https://w3c.github.io/dpub-pwp-ucr/

Latest PWP Editors’ draft:

https://w3c.github.io/dpub-pwp/

PWP Issue list:

https://github.com/w3c/dpub-pwp/issues

Thank you for your attention!

This presentation:

https://prototypo.github.io/2017/CAUL-20170712/slides/index.html

To contact me:

Dr. David Hyland-Wood
UQ School of ITEE
d.hylandwood@uq.edu.au

“addressing” vs. “identification”

• These two “roles” are different
• The usual situation:
  • some form of a URI is used to (uniquely) identify a resource
  • an HTTP(S) URL is used to address (or “locate”) a resource on the Web
• In many cases the two roles coincide, but not always
  • e.g., for a digital Book :
    • URN:ISBN:1-56592-521-1 identifies the publication
    • http://www.ex.org/ex.wp addresses a particular copy

Is it “addressing” or “identification”?

• Identification is handled by a number of other organizations (like the DOI foundation, the International ISBN Agency, etc.)
• The work on (P)WP has to concentrate on locators (i.e., addressing)

What does a Web request return for a locator?

• Possibilities are:
  • the package that includes the manifest at some predefined place (in case this is a Packaged Web Publication)
  • an HTML file with a link to a manifest (through a <link> element)
  • an HTML file with an embedded manifest (through a <script> element)
  • an HTML file with a link to a manifest in the Link header of the HTTP response
• Unclear whether all of these are necessary and/or feasible

Book reading needs a different approach to ergonomy

• Typical example: pagination
  • for short text, pagination is not really important
  • but what about reading, say, the War and Peace?
  • currently not available or used on the Web
• Pagination isn’t only books: slides, cards, and other “boxes” use the same functionality

Personalization

• What is the level of user control of the presentation?
• The Web and eBook traditions are vastly different:
  • in a browser, the Web designer is in full control
    • CSS alternate style sheets or user style sheets are hardly in use
    • some user interface aspects can be controlled but only for the browser as a whole
  • in an eBook reader, there is more user control
    • foreground/background color
    • choice of fonts
• There is a need to reconcile these traditions

Advantage for the publishers‘ community

• The main interest of publishers is to produce, edit, curate, etc., content
• Publishers would have an easier access to a large audience
• Publishers have invested heavily into technology developments, but the Web developers’ community can complement that with a wider reach and perspective

Advantage for the publishers‘ community

• Working closely with Web developers avoids re-inventing wheels
  • e.g., APIs to access system resources or utilities, like index database, battery status API, real-time communication, geolocation,…
• Aligning more on OWP means that specialized readers or Web sites, software, services, etc, can rely on it

Advantage for the Web community

• Publishers have experience in:
  • ergonomics, typography, aesthetics…
  • publishing long texts, with the right readability and structure
• Workflow for producing complex content
• New type of content might emerge