Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-285) and index.

Introduction -- Towards a new conception of books and reading. Introduction; From books as objects to books as systems: towards a new understanding of books; From the text on the web to the web book; What makes a book an eBook; The Gutenberg parenthesis; New scenarios, new cultural territories -- Reading applications: an analysis. Introduction; Reading devices and applications: main features -- New business models for reading in the cloud; What are 'cloud computing' and cloud hosting?; Books and cloud services for the eBook; Cloud business models; Cloud user rights -- Open access eBooks. Introduction; What is open access?; The objectives of open access; Open access electronic books; Licenses; Books in the public domain on the platforms of major publishers; Self-publishing and streaming reading -- Social reading platforms: diagnosis and evaluation. Introduction; Social reading: a network phenomenon; Social reading platforms: diagnosis and evaluation; Off-line reading platforms, On-line reading platforms; Social reading platforms and applications; New systems of recommendation -- System contents personalisation. Introduction; Ways in which contents can be personalised; Results; The Amazon.com phenomenon -- Social tagging and its applications for academic and leisure reading. Introduction; Social indexing from an agent perspective; The social indexing triangle; Social tagging criteria; Characteristics of social tagging; Social tagging: types and uses; Strengths and weaknesses of social tagging; Social indexing applications -- By way of an epilogue; Appendix; Search engines for electronic books; Digital libraries; eBook initiatives; Doctoral dissertations on-line; Open access software for eBooks.

"Contemporary developments in the book publishing industry are changing the system as we know it. Changes in established understandings of authorship and readership are leading to new business models in line with the postulates of Web 2.0. Socially networked authorship, book production and reading are among the social and discursive practices starting to define this emerging system. Websites offering socially networked, collaborative and shared reading are increasingly important. Social Reading maps socially networked reading within the larger framework of a changing conception of books and reading. This book is structured into chapters covering topics in: social reading and a new conception of the book; an evaluation of social reading platforms; an analysis of social reading applications; the personalization of system contents; reading in the Cloud and the development of new business models; and Open Access e-books. Discusses social reading as an emerging tendency involving authors, readers, librarians, publishers, and other industry professionals -- Describes how the way we read is changing -- Presents ways in which the major players in the digital content industry are developing specific applications to foster socially networked reading."--Provided by publisher.

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