Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Based on the PostScript language, each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, vector graphics, raster images and other information needed to display it. PDF has its roots in "The Camelot Project" initiated by Adobe co-founder John Warnock in 1991. PDF was standardized as ISO 32000 in 2008. The last edition as ISO 32000-2:2020 was published in December 2020.
Electronic publishing includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. It also includes the editing of books, journals, and magazines to be posted on a screen.
Advanced Systems Format is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media. ASF is part of the Media Foundation framework.
In library and archival science, digital preservation is a formal process to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable in the long term. It involves planning, resource allocation, and application of preservation methods and technologies, and combines policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and "born-digital" content, regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time.
An audiobook is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
BiblioVault is a virtual warehouse for academic books that serves more than 90 scholarly publishers in the U.S. and Europe.
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other software.
Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receives "credits" that can be redeemed for content monthly and receive access to a curated on-demand library of content. Audible is the United States' largest audiobook producer and retailer. The service is owned by Audible, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.
Open eBook (OEB), or formally, the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS), is a legacy e-book format which has been superseded by the EPUB format. It was "based primarily on technology developed by SoftBook Press" and on XML. OEB was released with a free version belonging to public domain and a full version to be used with or without DRM by the publishing industry.
Adobe Digital Editions is an e-book reader software program from Adobe. It is used for acquiring, managing, and reading e-books, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports EPUB and PDF. It implements a proprietary scheme of digital rights management (DRM) which, since the version 1.5 release in May 2008, allows document sharing among multiple devices and user authentication via an Adobe ID. Digital Editions is a successor to the Acrobat eBook Reader application.
The following is a comparison of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books.
The term born-digital refers to materials that originate in a digital form. This is in contrast to digital reformatting, through which analog materials become digital, as in the case of files created by scanning physical paper records. It is most often used in relation to digital libraries and the issues that go along with said organizations, such as digital preservation and intellectual property. However, as technologies have advanced and spread, the concept of being born-digital has also been discussed in relation to personal consumer-based sectors, with the rise of e-books and evolving digital music. Other terms that might be encountered as synonymous include "natively digital", "digital-first", and "digital-exclusive".
OverDrive, Inc. is a worldwide digital distributor of ebooks, audiobooks, online magazines and streaming video titles. The company provides digital rights management and download fulfillment services for publishers, public libraries, K–12 schools, colleges, universities, corporations, legal industries, and formerly retailers.
OverDrive Media Console was a proprietary, freeware application developed by OverDrive, Inc. for use with its digital distribution services for libraries, schools, and retailers. The application enables users to access audiobooks, eBooks, periodicals, and videos borrowed from libraries and schools—or purchased from booksellers—on devices running Android, BlackBerry, iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod), and Windows, including Mac and Windows desktop and laptop computers.
Accessible publishing is an approach to publishing and book design whereby books and other texts are made available in alternative formats designed to aid or replace the reading process. It is particularly relevant for people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.
Calibre is a cross-platform free and open-source suite of e-book software. Calibre supports organizing existing e-books into virtual libraries, displaying, editing, creating and converting e-books, as well as syncing e-books with a variety of e-readers. Editing books is supported for EPUB and AZW3 formats. Books in other formats like MOBI must first be converted to those formats, if they are to be edited. Calibre also has a large collection of community contributed plugins.
Hoopla is a web and mobile (Android/iOS) library media streaming platform launched in 2010 for audio books, comics, e-books, movies, music, and TV. Patrons of a library that supports Hoopla have access to its collection of digital media.
Google Play Books, formerly Google eBooks, is an ebook digital distribution service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. Users can purchase and download ebooks and audiobooks from Google Play, which offers over five million titles, with Google claiming it to be the "largest ebooks collection in the world". Books can be read on a dedicated Books section on the Google Play website, through the use of a mobile app available for Android and iOS, through the use of select e-readers that offer support for Adobe Digital Editions, through a web browser and reading via Google Home. Users may also upload up to 2,000 ebooks in the PDF or EPUB file formats. Google Play Books is available in 75 countries.
The Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library, formerly the Silver Spring Library, is part of the Montgomery County Public Libraries System. It opened to the public in 1931 and is currently located at 900 Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. The library is named for Charles E. McGee, a Tuskegee Airman who had lived in Montgomery County.
