LINMO

Hard Copy Book Definition

The term hard copy book is used to refer to books that exist as physical objects, typically printed on paper, and to distinguish them from books which are published on the Internet or in other electronic form.

The term in its broadest sense refers to more than just books printed on individual sheets of paper. It can also refer to books that were hand written prior to the invention of the movable type printing process by Gutenberg around 1450. It could likewise refer to books that were written on other materials, such as papyrus and velum, and to books that were in the form of rolled scrolls rather than separate pages. The meaning could even be extended to the baked clay tablets that were commonly used thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia.

The basic physical unit of organization of hard copy books is the page, and the basic logical unit of organization (i.e., of the content) is the chapter. These can be referred to as physical modules and logical modules, respectively.

A module is a self-contained component of a system (e.g., a product) which has a well-defined interface (i.e., a shared boundary or connection) to other components of the system. There is usually some degree of substitutability among identical and/or non-identical modules within a system or between systems.

Extensive use is made today of electronics technology at almost all stages of the production of hard copy books, from the original research and writing through final distribution and customer feedback. This has played a major role in keeping the costs of books much lower than they would have otherwise been. However, they still remain very expensive or even unaffordable for much of the world's population. Moreover, even when they are affordable, it is often not practical for people in many rural areas to make us of them because of the because of the poor quality or non-existence of libraries and bookstores.

The extensive use of electronics technology in book development has also made it increasingly easy to publish such books in electronic form, such as on the web or on CDROMs. Publishing on the web is seen by many as a way to overcome the problems with hard copy books, including their substantial consumption of paper and other resources and their high prices. However, there are some problems with this approach, particularly the large loss of revenue to authors and publishers.

Another is that the most efficient and usable form for books on the web, particularly non-fiction works, is different from that for their hard copy counterparts. That is, merely republishing in electronic form without major revisions of the structure does not allow such works to fully utilize the advantages that the web has as compared with hard copy books.

The reason is that the optimal form of modularization for the content is very different for the web than for printed books. That is, whereas the optimal logical modules for printed books are chapters, and sections of chapters, which are arranged linearly, the optimal logical modules for web content are logical pages, each of which is devoted to a single self-contained article. These pages are linked in an associative relationship using hyperlinks (somewhat analogous to how memories are linked in the human mind) rather than in a linear relationship.

There can also be major differences in the dynamics of publishing content on the web as compared with in the form of hard copy books, and they can likewise provide major benefits to both users and authors. In the case of the latter, the writing of all parts of the book must first be completed before any of them can become generally available to readers. Moreover, once printing and binding have been completed, no changes can be made, and it can take years and much expense to create a new edition that contains corrections and/or additional content. With a web site containing similar content, however, subtopics can be added one at a time, and thus some content can be made available to users much more quickly than can with hard copy books, and content can also be corrected, updated and expanded much more quickly.