There’s a bit of talk lately about Penguin’s enhanced e-books, which provides the inclusion of additional material as supplements to the book. But this still follows a very print-oriented model.

If I want to learn more about a classic text while using a computing device, then I would really prefer for the material to be presented in a way that leverages multimedia rather than simply reading more and more text. Sell me an e-book that includes extensive commentary in audio, video, and with superb graphic renderings related to the book’s content and I will gladly pay $20 or more (perhaps a lot more, depending upon content) for that title.

Penguin’s enhanced e-books are designed around the limitations of today’s e-book reading devices. All of us who work with technology know that this is a rapidly moving target and that these devices will evolve significantly over the next few years. And, also, there’s already an intriguing device that many people are very excited about that currently can support these truly enhanced, e-books: it’s called a computer.

How to develop the enhanced content for e-books?

Creating this advanced level of supplementary content is a very complex (and expensive) production. (Then again, simply publishing a book is itself already a complex and expensive production of editing, layout, printing, etc.; publishers already have a lot of expertise in efficient content development that can be utilized for these tasks.)

However, an option for publishers that don’t want to create this material in-house is to partner with universities to produce digital content. Universities are filled with academic specialists on every topic along with librarians, digital media specialists, and professionals who really understand how to use technology to enhance learning. And, after all, isn’t reading closely related to learning?

Publishers can provide grants to universities for producing the enhanced digital content. In turn, the enhanced e-books can be licensed for free use by academic institutions while publishers recoup the costs by selling the enhanced e-books to the public.

Of course, universities should already be developing such content as part of their own digital scholarship initiatives. When I was directing the digital library initiatives at the University of Miami, I formed a series of projects that provided funding to faculty for producing digital content. That was several years ago now, and things in academia move slowly (perhaps almost as slowly as in publishing!)

There’s actually a great opportunity here for university presses, which should – but seemingly seldom – be closely coordinated with digital media specialists at their universities. Indeed, there’s no reason why universities – which are always looking for new revenue sources – to be producing such enhanced versions of classic titles already in the public domain.

Then again, there might be entirely new firms specializing in enhanced content for digital media publishing that will emerge, either selling the fully enhanced e-books to the public or licensing the material to other publishers.

A significant problem I see with the current debate on e-books is that it views books as being only text. Don’t let the limitations of today’s Kindle and other e-book readers determine the future of e-books.

Again, a reference to my librarian days: I was fond of saying that in the future we will stop referring to digital libraries as digital libraries but instead someday just call them libraries. Likewise, someday we will stop referring to digital books as e-books and simply call them books.