Ebooks (Electronic Books)
An ebook is an
electronic (or digital) version of a book. The
term is used ambiguously to refer to either an individual
work in a digital format, or a hardware device used
to read books in digital format. Some users deprecate
the second meaning in favour of the more precise "ebook
device."
Though e-texts are available as digitally
encoded books and the term is often used synonymously
with the term ebook, that usage is deprecated. The
term e-text is used for the more limited case of data
in ASCII text format, while the more general e-book
can be in a specialized (and, at times, proprietary)
file format. An exception to this rule is the academic
e-text, which commonly includes components such as
facsimile images, apparatus criticus, and scholarly
commentary on the work from one or more editors specially
qualified to edit the author or work in question.
An ebook is commonly bundled by a publisher
for distribution (as an ebook, an ezine, or a internet
newspaper), whereas e-text is distributed in ASCII
(or plain text), or in the case of academic works,
in the form of discrete media such as compact discs.
Metadata relating to the text are sometimes included
with etext (though it appears more frequently with
ebooks). Metadata commonly include details about author,
title, publisher, and copyright date; less common
are details regarding language, genre, relevant copyright
conventions, etc.*
