The semantic linking feature displays links to related content from SpringerLink's archive. It's similar to the 'see also' feature on ReadWriteWeb and the related entries functionality on many other news web sites. What's interesting about SpringerLink's implementation is that the related content is from book chapters and journal articles.

What is Semantic Linking?

On certain documents, there is a 'Related Documents' section that is populated using a "digital fingerprinting process." This process analyzes the source document and compares it to all other documents in SpringerLink. It "determines which documents are most similar to that article or chapter," the company states.

This is a vague description of "digital fingerprinting." Regardless, the feature does expose researchers to new documents they might otherwise have not seen.

What Else is New

SpringerLink has also added a revised subject hierarchy and a new PDF Preview feature.

SpringerLink now covers 12 major subjects - including mathematics, computer science, medicine, engineering, economics, law, humanities and social sciences.

The PDF Preview feature provides all readers with a free look inside eBook chapters. Subscribers to the service will also be able to explore the entire book and download specific content that they need.

SpringerLink is a good example of how books and academic articles are being changed by the Internet. It's encouraging to see semantic search being used in the eBook domain. Let us know in the comments if you're aware of other examples of semantic technology in eBooks.

Another market where eBooks have a lot of potential is education. It too is at an early stage, but there are many benefits to students accessing their text books electronically. Shared highlights, margin notes, search - to name a few. Surprisingly though, it's not iPad and eReaders that are driving the eTextbook market - but PCs and netbooks. The iPhone and Android are making some in-roads, however. We spoke to one of the leading eTextbook services, CafeScribe, to find out more about the emerging eTextbook market.

Hinds told us that CafeScribe is mostly used on PCs, Macs and netbooks. She cited pricing issues for iPad (students can't afford them) and the relative lack of functionality in current eReaders. Specifically, she cited color, pagination and illustration as features that the current crop of eReaders don't do well enough for the eTextbook market. This echoes our conclusions from over a year ago, when we analyzed why Kindle wasn't a good choice for eTextbooks.

How CafeScribe Works

Students buy an eBook either on CafeScribe's online store or in its offline store. They then read it via a PC and Mac software program called MyScribe.

CafeScribe Features

Notes in MyScribe are done as overlays, so that they stay in context. Notes can also be shared, including in groups, which according to Isabella Hinds means that students can "have a dialog about the book while they're reading."

Groups may be created not only inside the classroom environment, but as part of the purchase of an eBook. The buyer can see who else purchased that same eTextbook, and choose to create or join a group around the book. Follett has observed that many students are creating study groups around books.

Groups are also very useful for instructors, who can create a group for their class. Hinds told us that this enables instructors to "enrich the core book with content or comments that they find valuable." They can also better engage with students and ascertain whether students are really learning the material. Teachers can encourage students to ask questions, via the notes feature.

One of the main features of MyScribe that Hinds pointed to is maintaining pagination, which helps in group collaboration and also syncing eBooks with paper books.

eTextbook Market & Future

Currently there are about 10,000 books available in CafeScribe. Hinds said that Follett represents all of the major Higher Ed publishers, including the 5 largest.

The product is being used today by about 400 education institutions across the US. Some are using the product heavily, while others have just a few courses that utilize it. The product is currently being introduced in Canadian stores, but there are no plans to extend outside of North America.

As for its future, CafeScribe is making a push towards mobile - in particular the iPhone, Android, and iPad. It recognizes that students use a variety of devices nowadays, so it wants to go beyond the PC market. Whether CafeScribe can tackle eReader devices will, as noted above, depend on iPad pricing going down and eReader functionality going up.

Other companies in the eTextbook market include CourseSmart (which we reviewed last August) and VitalSource.

Students & Teachers: Are You Using eTextbooks?

A study in May by OnCampus Research showed that 74% of students still prefer to use a printed textbook when taking a class. The Seattle Times also reported in May that eTextbooks are "flunking." So clearly, eTextbooks have a long way to go. On the other side of the coin, eTextbooks are expected to 1 in 5 textbooks by 2014.

Much of the problem at present seems to be that eReaders are either too expensive (e.g. iPad) or not functional enough (e.g. Kindle). Those issues certainly seem solvable by 2014.

If you're a student or teacher, we'd love your input in the comments about your use of eBooks - or if you don't use them, why not?

The App

The iPhone app itself is a decent eBook reader, though it suffers from the fact that the textbooks haven't been formatted for the small screen. Also, while the company's desktop readers allow students to take notes, the iPhone app can only read those (notes are stored on CourseSmart's servers).

Of course, the app really isn't meant as a student's only way to access the textbook, so these shortcomings can be forgiven. What's more important is that the app gives students an easy way to access their notes from anywhere. Thanks to the app's built-in search, it is also easy to quickly look up a fact.

Try It

If you want to give the app a try but don't want to lease a textbook, don't worry. CourseSmart includes a number of sample chapters from standard textbooks with the app.

Textbooks

As we predicted earlier this week, Amazon is aiming this device at the educational market and has reached deals with three major textbook publishers: Pearson, Wiley, and Cengage Learning.

Newspapers

Amazon also announced that the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post have signed deals with Amazon and that these papers will begin trials with reduced prices for Kindle DX users who agree to long-term subscription commitments later this summer. It looks like these discounts will only be available to users who live in areas where printed versions of these papers are not readily available.

During today's event, the New York Times' chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., argued that the new Kindle finally offers "the same satisfying experience as the reading of a printed newspaper." It remains to be seen, though, if newspaper readers are indeed clamoring for a device that simply copies the experience of reading a traditional, dead-tree newspaper. It is also important to note that Sulzberger called the new deal with Amazon an "experiment," and the success of this experiment will surely also depend on how much of a discount on the Kindle the papers are willing to give to their readers.

Not a Game-Changer

Judging from what we have seen so far, we don't think that the Kindle DX will be a major game-changer in the eTextbook market or for the newspaper business. Besides the bigger screen, there is nothing really new in the Kindle DX, though having a native PDF reader will surely be useful to a lot of users.

The newspapers' discount offer seems a bit timid, to say the least (though we still don't have all the details yet). And we still have serious doubts that the Kindle is the ideal device for reading textbooks (though we have to admit that some of our readers are more enthusiastic about a large-screen Kindle for eTextbooks than we are).