Despite the economic downturn, threat of terrorist disruption and gloomy press reports, 300 people attended Electronic Book 2001 in Washington, D.C., November 5—7. In the aftermath of the dot-com collapse and e-book hype, representatives from publishing, libraries, technology providers and government, met to pick through evidence that shows that steady progress has been made in the digital delivery of content. The fourth annual meeting was again hosted by NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (the U.S. Department of Commerce), and NISO, the National Information Standards Organization (an industry association of library, publisher and IT members).

In his keynote address, Jack Romanos, president and COO of Simon & Schuster, noted that if you take away the unrealistic expectations created by early analysts' forecasts and the anomaly of Riding the Bullet's 600,000 downloads, the "e-publishing evolution is right on schedule." Referring to tensions within the industry over digital rights, Romanos asserted that, given the current tiny market size, "all we are really talking about is table scraps."

RosettaBooks COO Leo Dwyer returned to Romanos's comments on the conference's second day, countering that "table scraps" (i.e., the rights to the operating system), were what IBM granted Bill Gates 20 years ago. Dwyer provided a thoughtful analysis of e-book market dynamics—including leasing e-books for brief periods of time—concluding, "If e-publishing merely reproduces p-publishing, there is no way to maximize the value of e-rights."

Veteran attendees lamented the contraction of the meeting and loss of industry leaders like Reciprocal (which had just closed its doors) and netLibrary. Microsoft was also a no-show.

An executive from a leading publisher asserted privately that investment money for digital publishing has "all but dried up," adding, "The only real player is going to be government." However, despite pre-conference hints of Departments of Defense and Education initiatives—comments circulated at Frankfurt about the DoD throwing multiple billions of dollars for crash programs for distance learning and "battlefield" e-books—only NIST's ongoing program to provide R&D funding was actually outlined.

During a panel on Wednesday, a number of venture capital company executives, including Mark Capaldini of MCG Capital Corporation, said that money is still available for e-publishing, based on demonstrable traditional business strengths: revenues, cash flow and assets. As one university press publisher put it, "It's Darwin and, in a way, it's easier. Only those companies with some business validity are still around."

Echoing Romanos's comments about "evolution," Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive and chair of the Open eBook Foundation, made a bedrock comment: "This is only version 1.0. Of course we're going to make some mistakes with e-books, but version 2.0 is coming." While not resolving the ongoing confusion in the term "e-book," attendees and presenters agreed that underlying problems are due to a lack both of standards and of interoperability among the confusing number of different readers, file formats and operating platforms. "Some consumers," Potash noted, "buy e-books online without knowing what they are really getting. Can they download it? Lend it? Print it?"

Russ Wilcox, vice-president and general manager of E-Ink, demonstrated a new screen technology, in the marketplace by 2003, that will be virtually as light, bright and flexible as paper. (A lightweight, impressively clear beta version circulated among the audience.) Recent library and academic studies (of quite small samples) suggest that the real problem is getting people to try e-books for the first time. Surveys by Susan Gibbons at the University of Rochester indicate that more than 50% of those who use e-books once want to use them again. Tom Peters, director of the Center for Library Initiatives, found that some 90% of students using an e-book in a course would repeat the experience.

Thus, despite travails and disappointments, participants were willing to see light at the end of the tunnel. "Overall, I liken the situation to trying to sell videocassettes before there were VCRs to play them on," observed Michael Curro, director of e-books merchandising at Barnes & Noble. "E-books are going to happen. We're in this for the long term." At the final session, Todd Watson, founder of Vital Source Technologies, noted, "When content is good, publishers always win," bringing a smile to hosts, vendors and attendees already planning for next year's conference.