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By David Rothman

image Never mind a well-stocked national digital library system in the TeleRead vein and promotion of e-book friendly hardware. So far, the Obama White House strikes me clueless about e-books. Obama’s people wouldn’t even issue a proclamation to observe Read an E-Book Week despite the participation of major companies such as Sony, as well as the IDPF, the main e-book trade organization.

image But over in Taiwan—far more than just a honeycomb of worker bees, as the right photo of the Siougulan River shows—the Ministry of Education is lavishing $65 million to nurture the e-book industry.

Education isn’t the only thing on the ministry’s mind. One goal is to control 80 percent of the global market share for readers by 2013. The ministry’s "project includes the development of two to three trading platforms for Chinese-language e-books," reports the Inquirer, following up on a DigiTimes item. "It has ordered the creation of 10 ‘innovative applications’ for the ebook platform and wants to see 100,000 Chinese-language e-books published.

"Taiwanese analysts believe that ebooks need some form of government help to take off. If the government provides assistance then the industry will make sure that the digital books revolution will be based around local companies who make the hardware. All fairly clever thinking if it works."

Especially with the U.S. book business in a depression, the White House could do worse than to study and pros and cons of the Taiwanese approach and the TeleRead plan—and act. Aren’t books, not just roads and bridges, worthy of a well-thought-out stimulus program?

Detail: No partisanship here. I enthusiastically voted for Obama and would love to report some positive news out of D.C. The Kindle-centric plan from the Democratic Leadership Council isn’t the solution. We need to look beyond dedicated e-book readers and think of e-books for use on a variety of devices—everything from Kindle-style tablets to netbooks. Procurement alone isn’t the solution. The industry needs standards, and the IDPF’s ePub format, despite its defects, is a start.

Related: Site with content and links for the Taiwanese Digital Archives and E-Learning Program.

 
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