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If indeed scans of the original are always available, then yes, this may not be an issue. However, that may be a big if. And what if the scans were available, but later were not?
And what of new content that is purely digital? How do you make reference to a particular passage in an ebook that is unambiguous? I guess you could say "chapter xx, paragraph yy, sentence zz", but that is cumbersome.
It probably would be better to let the reader software/hardware handle this. However, I don't know of any readers that do. That's why I was wondering about ways to do it within the limits of existing ebook formats.
As ebooks become more prevalent and possibly replace p-books, some standard method of dealing with references should be available. Perhaps this is something that should be addressed in a future standard (epub or otherwise). In fact, the current focus of ebooks seems to be exclusively casual reading. If ebooks are to be used to replace textbooks and other scholarly works, then the current standards need improving. I know that currently PDF is used to solve some of these problems, but we all know the problems of using PDF on other than full-screen devices.
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