From: adam hodgkin <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2017 12:32:08 +0100

Jim O'Donnell started an interesting thread last week on the OUP Very
Short Introduction series.

Do such books get lost in the OPAC? Can they become a central and much
trafficked resource in the library (since they are in some ways better
than Google/Wikipedia)?

As it happens Exact Editions has just soft launched for ICON a
collection of Graphic Guides -- which have a comparable information
level and educational role, but they are graphic stories not primarily
texts. And they do meet some of the requirements sought in the thread
on VSI books. See

https://institutions.exacteditions.com/icon-graphic-guides

These are not ebooks and they are exactly like the print books when
rendered on screen through a browser. But since the books are
presented as a Collection (fully browseable and searchable either as
collection or individual books) they do feel something like a virtual
carousel, or a virtual tabletop layout, when the reader comes upon
them.

A blog about the collection here:
https://blog.exacteditions.com/2017/02/02/more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/

In making digital libraries more usable and appealing we may have to
rethink interfaces and rescue some of the advantages of the print
format that have been lost in the first generation of digital books.

--
Adam Hodgkin

www.exacteditions.com
and my book Following Searle on Twitter
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo25370730.html