E-Books: A CMS 101 Wiki Project Entry for Washington College Students

This project entry explores the history and impact of e-books, beginning with Angela Ruiz Robleshad's early prototype and Michael Hart's Project Gutenberg, which launched the first e-book, the Declaration of Independence, in 1971. The project highlights the evolution of e-books through the introduction of software like Glassbook and Microsoft Reader, and Amazon's Kindle. It also references scholarly articles discussing the importance of books and the challenges of legal deposit for e-books in national libraries. This CMS 101 Wiki project entry examines the cultural and technological shifts brought about by e-books, from their inception to their current widespread use in digital media.

Running head: E-BOOK
E-Book
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1E-BOOK
[TERM] E-BOOK
[ENTRY] Books are the single most important sources for providing information. However, an
important problem faced by the people was non-accessibility to some rare books. This was done
by the concerned authorities in the good intention to protect the most important sources which
provides an insight into the landmark moments of human history (Hughey, 2015). However, this
meant availability to limited knowledge to the common masses. In order to bridge this existing
gap, the idea of ‘e-book’ was founded.
The concept of e-book was developed by a woman called Angela Ruiz Robleshad. In the year
1949, she formulated her first prototype of e-book (De Beer et al., 2016). Although it could not
read electronically, it was hailed as the first book which could be read in an automated manner.
This project laid abandoned for a few years before it was taken up by Michael Hart in the year
1971 (De Beer et al., 2016). He termed it as Project Gutenberg. He is credited with the invention
of the world’s first e-book. The first e-book which was launched in 1971 was the Declaration of
Independence (De Beer et al., 2016). This has a lot of significance as the Declaration of
Independence is a formal statement which states that people are free from all supervision.
The idea gained a lot of importance in the beginning of the twenty first century. The information
technology giants saw this as an opportunity and launched a software known as Glassbook. It
was the first application which allowed the e-books to be read on the computer. Microsoft
followed suit and launched its own software known as Microsoft Reader. Later, Amazon seized
this opportunity and collaborated with Microsoft to launch its very own software for e-book
reader.

2E-BOOK
In the contemporary world of today, e-book has a widespread impact on the people. The
traditional books are fast losing their significance because of the ease of access to e-book
readers.

3E-BOOK
References:
Hughey, M. W. (2015). Book Review: On the Importance of Books, Reviews, and Humanist
Sociology. Humanity & Society, 39(2), 254-260.
This book looks into the importance of books. It analyzes he significance of books in the
evolution of human history. The author talks about his love for books and how they have helped
him in the journey of his life,
De Beer, M., Van der Merwe, M., Ball, L., & Fourie, I. (2016). Legal deposit of electronic
books–a review of challenges faced by national libraries. Library Hi Tech, 34(1), 87-103.
This article talks critically about the various challenges posed by the easy access to
electronic books. It looks at the legal concern for the storage of e-books in the national libraries.
National libraries are the repository of all knowledge and this knowledge is usually found in the
traditional hard cover books.