long time for the
next edition, if indeed a next edition ever came out.

Also, in terms of marketing, the Web seems crucial, especially for small
publishers that can't afford to place ads in major magazines and on the radio.
Although large companies continue to have an advantage, in cyberspace small
publishers can put up very competitive marketing efforts.

We think that paper books will be around for a while, because using them is
habitual. Many readers like the feel of paper, and the heft of a book held in
the hands or carried in a purse or backpack. I haven't yet used a digital book,
and I think I might prefer one -- because of ease of search, because of color,
because of sound, etc. Obviously, multimedia books can be easily downloaded from
the Web, and such books probably will dominate publishing in the future. Not yet
though.

= How do you see the future?

I'm not very state-of-the-art so I'm not sure. I would like to have direct
access to text -- digitally read books in the Library of Congress, for example,
just as now I can read back issues of many newspapers. Currently, while I can
find out about books on-line, I need to get the books into my hands to use them.
I would rather access them on-line and copy sections that I need for my work,
whereas today I either have to photocopy relevant pages, or scan them in, etc.

I expect that soon I will use the Internet for video telephoning, and that will
be a happy development.

I do not know if I will publish books on the Web -- as opposed to publishing
paper books. Probably that will happen when books become multimedia. (I
currently am helping develop multimedia learning materials, and it's a form of
teaching that I like a lot -- blending text, movies, audio, graphics, and --
when possible -- interactivity).

*Interview of August 3, 1999

= What has happened since our 1998 interview?

In addition to "web extending" books, we are now web-extending our multimedia
(CD-ROM) products -- to update and enrich them.

= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web? What practical
solutions do you have?

The secret, I think, is to create information packages that cannot be
economically stolen. In other words, the product being sold needs to have more
value than a copy. For example, it's currently easier and cheaper for someone to
buy one of our books than to photocopy a book -- in its entirety. So we try to
design our books in a way that makes all the pa