DCLnews Exclusive:
Columbia University Press compiling customizable guide to digital publishing
Columbia's forthcoming ready reference to e-publishing will be a completely customizable experience - DCLnews brings you a sneak preview...

DIGITAL PUBLISHING is undoubtedly going to have an enormous impact on every aspect of the bookworld - from the commercial and academic to business and self-publishing. Admittedly there's presently a feeling of gloom in the eBook "bestseller" market due to lack of sales. But in other sectors of publishing, digital publications are already an integral part of the industry.

Indeed, many publishers, editors, and authors are being asked to alter their working practises to fit in with the requirements of electronic publishing. These changes aren't big - in many cases they are almost imperceptible. But they are a telling sign that changes are in the air in publishing.

If you're in the publishing world you might well be apprehensive about entering the world of e-publications. Wondering whether you will have to learn new IT skills? Adapt to new programs? Or whether you will be able to stick with using QuarkXpress and Microsoft Word? At the very least, you will want to know how digital publishing works and get a better grasp of XML and SGML, the computer languages used to "markup" documents so they can easily and quickly be published in different formats.

>>>FACT FILE

Mark Gross, President of Data Conversion Laboratory is one of the contributors to The Columbia Guide To Digital Publishing, as is Bill Kasdorf, President, Impressions Book and Journal Services.

Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing
Currently the information available on digital publishing is technical to the point of being esoteric. But all that is about to change with the release in early 2003 of The Columbia Guide To Digital Publishing (Columbia University Press), which will be published simultaneously in print and online versions. Written by professionals from the digital publishing/conversion world, the book is intended as a ready reference for authors, writers, editors, and other publishing professionals. It goes into the nuts-and-bolts of manuscript preparation, editing, production, publication, and distribution of written and graphic material in digital format.

Customizable
To find out more I talked to Stephen Sterns, Project Editor of The Columbia Guide To Digital Publishing, who believes the design of the Guide offers the ideal combination of print and online publications. "The online version will take full advantage of today's digital media, allowing the print version to be very straightforward and simple," he says.

The web version of the Guide will be highly innovative and will provide a high level of functionality, including the ability for each user to customize the book to reflect their interests. "If a corporation or institution decide they want to have a subscription so the website is on every employees' computer, each of those employees will be able create their own personal edition of the Guide," explains Sterns. "They will have their own personal area where they can save searches and link to specific text they want to refer to again. Plus we will be able to alert those users when content they're interested in has been updated."

Being able to update content as and when you need to is one of the great strengths of e-publications. And it is particularly important in the technical field, which seems to change almost by the nano-second.

Early adapters
Columbia University Press were one of the first publishers to embrace electronic publishing and put their content into structured computer languages like SGML and (more recently) XML. Their flagship publication, The Columbia Encyclopedia, for example, has been produced in SGML for the last two editions. In fact, a leading figure in the development of SGML, Eric Van Herwijnen (author of "Practical SGML"), helped develop the original DTD (Document Type Definition) for it.

Seamless conversion
With The Columbia Guide To Digital Publishing, Columbia University Press are "practising what they preach" by producing the book with much of the technology and applications that form the subject matter of the book.

Sterns describes one of the ways this works in practise: "Both authors and editors are using specially designed templates which customize Microsoft Word. The templates make development of content extremely easy - for example, there are handy toolbars, clear and simple styles, and no cumbersome coding to have to contend with. In fact, some authors say the templates make Word a lot easier to use!" Sterns goes on to explain that the templates generate XML, making the conversion process seamless - and also allowing for easy updates of material.

The Columbia Guide To Digital Publishing will essentially be a working example of what can be done in digital publishing - and will lead the way for others wishing to explore ways of taking what we today know as "books" into the future. It could even prove to be one of the catalysts that kickstarts the eBook revolution...

DCLnews Editorial

DCLnews will keep you updated on the progress of The Columbia Guide To Digital Publishing - and will run a special feature to mark its publication.

Click here to Visit the Columbia University Press website.