L’édition numérique dans les pays en développement

“E-books, impression à la demande, sites de vente en ligne, essor des téléphones portables… les nouvelles technologies transforment profondément le mode de circulation des textes. Dans les pays en développement, qui connaissent à différentes échelles de graves contraintes en infrastructure, l’enjeu est de taille.

Quels nouveaux acteurs apparaissent dans les pays du Sud, en marge des systèmes puissants déjà formés aux États-Unis, en Europe et au Japon ? Peut-on concevoir une évolution autonome des publications numériques dans les pays en développement par rapport à celle des pays riches ? Quelles politiques d’appui peuvent être mises en place pour encourager la croissance de cette nouvelle industrie et pour aider et accompagner les acteurs traditionnels à s’adapter aux changements ?

Des expériences numériques menées dans le Sud permettent d’entrevoir que les nouvelles technologies constituent une grande opportunité pour les pays en développement – notamment en termes de diffusion – à condition que les entrepreneurs locaux cherchent des modèles originaux, adaptés aux besoins concrets de leurs communautés.”

URL : http://alliance-lab.org/etude/wp-content/uploads/edition_numerique.pdf

Free E Books and Print Sales Digital…

Free E-Books and Print Sales :

“Digital technologies now enable books and other digital resources to be openly available to those with access to the Internet. This study examined the financial viability of a religious publisher that put free digital versions of eight of its print books on the Internet. The cost to put these eight books online was $940. Over a 10-week period, these books were downloaded 102,256 times and sales of these books increased 26%. Online sales increased at a much higher rate. Comparisons with historical book sales and sales of comparable titles indicate that that this increase may have been connected to the free books being available. There was a modest correlation between book downloads and print sales.”

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3336451.0014.109

Bookshare: Making Accessible Materials Available Worldwide

Bookshare is the largest online library of accessible copyrighted materials for readers with print disabilities. In the last three years Bookshare has built a collection of over 30,000 books available throughout the world, serving people in 28 countries that span the globe. Developed and operated by Benetech, a non-profit using technology to serve unmet social needs,

Bookshare International works with local partners to provide content in multiple languages to serve people with print disabilities. Bookshare is particularly focused on addressing the accessible “book famine” in developing countries and applies ongoing
innovation to do so in a sustainable, effective manner.

URL : http://www.ifla.org/past-wlic/2011/148-beaumon-en.pdf

The emergence of electronic books publishing in Spain

“After reference books and scientific journals, electronic books represent the next level of evolution in the digital revolution. Their presence in libraries and their level of knowledge on the part of users is still low. But the development of specific collections by the publishers, the development of increasingly refined online distribution systems and the improvements in portable reading devices (e-book readers) are causing a change in this situation, along with a turnaround on the production and consumption of such documents. In Spain, recent experiences by publishing houses are related to this new market, and they will change the current publishing scene in no time. This article discusses some of them and gives an outlook of future developments in the sector.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/15459/