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By David Rothman

image What a laugh—e-book standards without provisions for shared annotations! I remain disappointed that the IDPF hasn’t acted on this, at least not to my knowledge.

Just what’s up, guys? Publishers should fret less over locking up textbooks and more about ways to increase their utility, so they stand less chance of losing out to Wikis and the open Web. And don’t just think of annotations within individual books, but among all books. Some annotations may apply to more than one title, for example.

Meanwhile Peter Brantley at the Internet Archive has pointed to a presentation on an open annotations initiative. Hello, IDPF? Care to do shared annotations on your own or, even better, link up with a reputable effort in this direction?

Relevant Web site: OpenAnnotations.org. Puzzle of the moment: why the annotations formats page tells me: “You are not allowed to view this page.”  A technical problem or exclusionary elitists at work? Both the IDPF and the groups it hooks up need to keep everything visible to the public.

Image: JCDL Tuesday plentary: Openness, CC-licensed from Grey Cats.

 
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