Will the feds do ePub in a big way?

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By David Rothman

In Why the White House’s embrace of Drupal matters, Nancy Scott tells how this could reflect the White House’s willingness to back off from expensive proprietary technology. Drupal powers Recovery.gov.

So could the same idea apply to the ePub publications format—nonproprietary?

I’m not as certain. The nonproprietary PDF/A is a version of PDF for archival use. So that might pre-empt ePub in many cases.

But is it possible that the feds might want to consider a "Start with XML" philosophy, if it isn’t in use already. They could create PDF/A for archival purposes and legal documents and employ ePub for other uses, especially for documents distributed to the public.

Furthermore, being nonproprietary and for display on a wide variety of devices, ePub would be the format to use in a well-stocked TeleRead-style national digital library system,

And speaking of politics-politics and e-format politics: Liberal commentators are mocking Rush Limbaugh for thinking that a PDF from the Obama administration wasn’t searchable, when actually it was. One blogger likens Rush to Homer Simpson.

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