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