MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Page numbers in ebooks for scholarly research?

GregS · 11-11-2007, 05:48 PM

What a great thread.

I only have few minutes before work. Legacy page numbers are very important, so is the fact that different printed editions had different page numbers. For epub and other light-weight encodings, the idea of having a multitude of "Milestones/page numbers" cattered within the text is not very elegant.

The idea of having these in the a meta file seems a good elegant solution. But the references being external also need a way of identifying the exact positioning without planting targets in the body of the work (why not then put the references directly into the body?).

IDs are in sense already there. And there is no predicting what is the most important structural unit of every text, nor the particular numbering system that should be used.

But IDs are definitely the right thing to be using for the future.

All established numbering systems create (with xmlnamespace implied) unique references II.iii.486, gets me to the same place in Hamlet (it isn't broken so why fix it).

But in a meta-file how do I specify that the folio edition of Hamlet that page x eneded not only mid line, but mid word?

II.iii.486/4/3 - word 4 letter 3.

That is possible, but not catered for in any scheme I know of.

Legacy page numbers, and in some instance, multiple legacy page references can be essential. They should be within the etext , ideally, but there is much to be said for having them external - after all they need only surrender their positions on request, they do not have to be displayed. Hence identifying the particular IDs I am interested in, the edition I am referencing to, it is a trivial lookup to be given the page numbers (without the problem of which of the editions should display their numbers).

Fragmenting the CSS style sheet, and putting everything into the etext might also be possible, hence I specify for my usage, paragraph numbers to be displayed along with the page numbers (in the text) for a specific edition. It could overburden the standard and that has to be considered (ie making epub a poor substitute for TEI, which really it cannot do).

XMLnamespace has to better solved than it is if this technology is to remain useful for texts. Establishing a numbering systems via IDs is critical and should be a mandatory part of the any standard (with or without legacy page number references - I am not dismissing it, this is very important).

11-11-2007, 05:48 PM	#131
GregS Zealot Posts: 107 Karma: 308 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Perth Australia Device: EZ Reader 5", Iliad	What a great thread. I only have few minutes before work. Legacy page numbers are very important, so is the fact that different printed editions had different page numbers. For epub and other light-weight encodings, the idea of having a multitude of "Milestones/page numbers" cattered within the text is not very elegant. The idea of having these in the a meta file seems a good elegant solution. But the references being external also need a way of identifying the exact positioning without planting targets in the body of the work (why not then put the references directly into the body?). IDs are in sense already there. And there is no predicting what is the most important structural unit of every text, nor the particular numbering system that should be used. But IDs are definitely the right thing to be using for the future. All established numbering systems create (with xmlnamespace implied) unique references II.iii.486, gets me to the same place in Hamlet (it isn't broken so why fix it). But in a meta-file how do I specify that the folio edition of Hamlet that page x eneded not only mid line, but mid word? II.iii.486/4/3 - word 4 letter 3. That is possible, but not catered for in any scheme I know of. Legacy page numbers, and in some instance, multiple legacy page references can be essential. They should be within the etext , ideally, but there is much to be said for having them external - after all they need only surrender their positions on request, they do not have to be displayed. Hence identifying the particular IDs I am interested in, the edition I am referencing to, it is a trivial lookup to be given the page numbers (without the problem of which of the editions should display their numbers). Fragmenting the CSS style sheet, and putting everything into the etext might also be possible, hence I specify for my usage, paragraph numbers to be displayed along with the page numbers (in the text) for a specific edition. It could overburden the standard and that has to be considered (ie making epub a poor substitute for TEI, which really it cannot do). XMLnamespace has to better solved than it is if this technology is to remain useful for texts. Establishing a numbering systems via IDs is critical and should be a mandatory part of the any standard (with or without legacy page number references - I am not dismissing it, this is very important).