TELEREAD AT A GLANCE
                       (FEB. 5, 1994)
     A Time writer was on the mark when he wrote of a hypothetical
ten-year-old boy in the era of video games and information
highways: "Just sit him down in front of a Sega Genesis or Super
Nintendo machine, shove a cartridge into the slot and he's
gone--body, mind and soul--into a make-believe world that's
better than sleep, better than supper and a heck of a lot bette
than school."

     Is it possible, however, that the information highways could
also serve the public interest? Could sharp-screened computers,
electronic books, and educational software be made affordable to
all? What about the haves vs. the have-nots in the information
age? Could we avoid replicating "savage inequalities" online? An
might information highways even *reduce* the cost of government?

    TeleRead--expanded from articles in the Washington Post an
elsewhere, and endorsed by people of differing political beliefs
including William F. Buckley, Jr.--tells how the Clinton
Administration could truly stand up for the public interest here.
Without a TeleRead-style approach, the knowledge crisis will b
the next healthcare crisis.

    This plan would benefit many groups--schoolchildren, parents,
and teachers; students and faculty at colleges and universities
throughout the U.S.; good librarians, who, in an era of dial-u
books, could otherwise find themselves bypassed; minorities; the
disabled, especially deaf and blind people; users and potentia
users of community networks, including those in low-income areas
and millions of other Americans who would suffer if our Nationa
Information Infrastructure accommodated vendors at the expense of
the rest of us.

    Still, TeleRead is hardly anti-business, quite the contrary.
TeleRead would lessen bureaucracy's burden on businesses; upgrad
the quality of the workforce; help newspapers and magazines go
online and enjoy large readerships; reduce losses from
bootlegging of text and educational software; make more money
available to book publishers that truly added value to their
offerings; let bookstores print out hard-copy books from 
national library online; spur the growth of a major electroni
forms industry; and create billions of dollars of new business
for companies in computers, communications, and electronic
information. Corporations such as Mead Data could actually enjoy
*more* opportunities.

     Mr. Buckley, one of the journalism's leading advocates o
property rights, has written a column called "The TeleRead in
Your Future."

                                    --David H. Rothman,
                                    Alexandria, Va.

* Internet: rothman@netcom.com
* America Online: DavidHR
* GEnie: D.Rothman1
* CompuServe: 73577,3271
*  MCI: David H Rothman
* Prodigy: TNFN63A

The actual proposal follows the summary directly ahead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                      TOWARD ELECTRONIC BOOKS
                       AND LEANER GOVERNMENT:
                        A SUMMARY OF TELEREAD

    THE BASIC IDEA: Drive down the cost of books for all
Americans, rich and poor. Reachable from anywhere in the country,
a dial-up database would offer all newly copyrighted books for
free or for a small subscription fee based on family income
    A "TeleRead" program might also include software for
educational use. And the same database could also contain bac
issues and past articles from newspapers, magazines, and other
publications that readers could dial up at no extra expense.

    Publisher of periodicals, moreover, could use TeleRead's
TRnet to transmit fresh editions to paying customers. The
government would offer special telcom rates to publications tha
now enjoy favorable postal rates; current issues would cost less
than they do today on paper.

    By including all kinds of "printed" media in one easy-to-use
database--with powerful search capabilities--TeleRead would help
promote reading and the spread of knowledge.

    Furthermore, as explained below, the taxpayers would come ou
ahead in the end.
    BENEFICIARIES: TeleRead would be a godsend to readers at
every income level; students; researchers in academia, medicine,
technology, business, and other fields; writers, editors, and
publishers of good books; blue-, white-, pink- and no-collar
workers hoping to upgrade skills; and millions of other Americans
who would benefit from the knowledge that TeleRead made possible.
TeleRead could even help save lives, by enabling medical
researchers to enjoy a greater awareness of each other's work.

    In addition, by promoting the mass use of electronic forms,
TeleRead could actually reduce the burden of government. Citizen
and business now spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year in
time and money on government-created paperwork--from local tax
forms to federal regulatory reports. TeleRead would advance the
goals of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review and
eventually save tens of billions of dollars a year. The same
machines used to display electronic books could be used for
filling out "smart" electronic forms that guided citizens through
the maze of tax rules and other regulations. Pen interfaces would
be optimal for such tasks.

   COMPUTERS USED: TeleRead would lower the cost of computers by
promoting the production and refinement of TeleReaders. These
small, sharp-screened machines would be just right for reading
and other educational purposes. TeleReaders would be designed for
ease of use while  allowing users to grow technically. The
federal government could buy  thousands of TeleReaders fo
schools and libraries to lend out.

    With mass production in full swing, powerful computers
eventually could cost little more than fancy calculators. Almos
all Americans by then could buy TeleReaders without subsidies,
and use them for reading and other applications such as
electronic forms.

    Massive government contracts--from Treasury, the military,
and other agencies--helped make the laptop industry what it is
today. TeleRead would dramatically speed up existing trends. It
would use well-defined technical standards so that many companies
could compete for contracts to produce TeleReaders for libraries
and schools. Anyone could build TeleReaders for direct purchase
by consumers; by far, most machines would be privately owned.

    As for the computer systems used by TeleRead's virtua
central database, I leave it for others to come up with the exac
configurations. The major criteria should be reliability
response time as perceived by users, and economy of operation.
Although I envision a virtual central database, I have no problem
with its using distributed technology, just so that all
copyrighted books and other print equivalents would show up i
one place. Please note the word "print equivalents." Our present
Internet, with thousands of servers, would survive. The virtual
central database could pick up the best content and technology
from the servers. Simply put, TeleRead would be a form o
electronic federalism.

    PAYMENTS FOR WRITERS AND PUBLISHERS: TeleRead would pay by
such criteria as the number of dial-ups. Publishers could set
advances according to the expected revenue from the TeleRead
database. Writers and publishers, of course, would be free to
publish material by other means--including, yes, traditional
books
    In the end, TeleRead would greatly increase the amount of
money available to writers and good publishers. Right now the
writer of a book selling for $20 receives maybe $1.20-$1.40 in
royalties. TeleRead would mean that more money would go for
writing and editing, and less  for printing, distribution, sales,
and other expenses not directly related to content. At the same
time, by way of a program for paper books printed on demand,
TeleRead would let bookstores and print shops  participate.

   Without TeleRead, writers and publishers will see middle
people siphon away obscene percentages of their earnings. Book
writers today can end up with as little as ten percent of revenue
from electronic rights. This is an outrage, given the reduced
costof distribution and the intent of traditional copyright law
to promote fairness. At the same time, without TeleRead, book
publishers would suffer as well. One encryption company proposes
to charge information providers 35 percent of the sales of
information providers. TeleRead, on the other hand, is an effort
to be fair to all.

    COPYRIGHT CONSIDERATIONS: The United States would closely
work with other signatories of the Berne Copyright convention.
TeleRead would  change the letter of international copyright law,
but not its intent. The plan would balance the rights of creators
and the public. Unpublished works and informal BBS postings would
enjoy the same copyright protection that they do now. TeleRead
would not publish proprietary information.

    CHOOSING WHAT GOES ONLINE: Librarians would enjoy much more
influence under TeleRead than they do today. (The proposal offers
details.) At the same time TeleRead allows writers and publishers
to be able to bypass librarians if need be.
    WHO WOULD OWN THE PHONE LINES: TeleRead would use private
phone lines and cable and radio connections--opening up billions
of dollars in opportunities for American corporations and their
workers.

    FINANCING: A TeleRead focusing on printed material and
educational software would EVENTUALLY cost about $30 billion a
year. Let the money come mostly from general revenue.
Cost-justify TeleRead by using TeleReader technology to promote
the use of electronic forms. That could save tens of billions of
dollars and more than make up for the $30 billion a year.

    RATE OF IMPLEMENTATION: TeleRead is not an instant solution
The plan would be implemented over a number of years, perhaps on
a subject-by-subject basis, starting with educational, technical
scientific and medial works. We could begin with a voluntar
program to encourage publishers to digitize books (perhap
starting with books that were on the verge of going out of
print). The government would not begin truly massive purchases of
TeleReaders until the technology improved sufficiently.

   PAPER BOOKS: A dial-up fee would be a dial-up fee regardless
of whether it came directly from a reader's electronic request or
from a bookstore or copy shop. Stores and shops would be required
to keep accurate records of dialups or risk the wrath of the IRS
Fees would be so low, howevever, so there would be little
incentive to  cheat.

   QUESTIONS UNANSWERED HERE: They abound. That's why the
proposal below is more than 27,000 words long.

   Feedback encouraged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TELEREAD: HOW WE COULD MAKE ELECTRONIC BOOKS AND EDUCATIONAL
SOFTWARE AFFORDABLE TO ALL--WHILE REDUCING THE COST OF GOVERNMEN
    Vice President Gore has long championed electronic books--
fine cause. But how much will books, educational software, and
other material cost the average American family to dial up?

    And is there a way to build millions of inexpensive computer
with sharp, viewable screens that would be easier to read than
paper books?

    Technology is destiny. What's our destiny, though, if video
stores are everywhere but half the school libraries in California
have closed since 1982?

    Here is a proposal addressing those issues--a refined version
of articles in Computerworld, the Baltimore Sun and th
Washington Post.

    The present "TeleRead" contain a wrinkle that should please
many tax-haters. The proposal tells how we could save billions in
the end by  encouraging the *mass* use of electronic forms for
tax returns, Social Security claims, reports for regulator
agencies, and other filings.  Why use "TeleReader" computers just
for education and reading?

    In addition, the proposal now explains how a TeleRead network
could supply bookstores and copy shops with electronic books t
print on demand. Instant paper books would be good transitional
technology for those wanting this. A dial-up fee would a dial-up
fee, whether it came directly from a reader's request or from a
bookstore's.

    Vice President Gore's office has receiveda copy of the
TeleRead plan and has forwarded it to the Office of Science and
Technology Policy. William F. Buckley, Jr., endorsed the basic
concept in a May  column, and recently I testified on TeleRead at
an interagency hearing on the copyright and the National
Information Infrastructue. See the "Updates" section at the end
of this file for the latest information.


  --David H. Rothman, Alexandria, Va.
* Internet: rothman@netcom.com
* America Online: DavidH
* GEnie: D.Rothman1
* CompuServe: 73577,3271
* MCI: David H Rothman
* Prodigy: TNFN63
===================================================================

   ATTENTION INTERNET USERS: This proposal is available in the
following ways and more:
   * Via the gopher of the Consortium for School Networking (no
endorsement implied here or elsewhere on this list). From systems
with gopher capabilities, you'll type gopher cosn.org. And the
select
------> 7. Networking Information
     ------>  5. Reference.

             ------> 12. TeleRead proposal.
   * Via anonymous FTP on ftp.utdallas.edu as
/pub/staff/billy/teleread.doc, and ftp.cic.net as
 /pub/e-serials/related/teleread.doc.

   * Via Gopher on gopher.cic.net in "Electronic Serials/Related
Materials."

   * Via anonymous FTP through inform.umd.edu.
cd inforM/Educational_Resources/ReadingRoom/Disability/Journals/Access/teleread

   * Via FTP on ftp.dana.edu in the nsfnet directory
   * Via Gopher on gopher.dana.edu in the K-12 Networking
directory and the Internet Training/Resource Documents;NSF
Net/NREN/NII Information directory.

   I'll be updating the proposal; please e-mail me if you want
the very most recent version.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

    * How Electronic Books Could Cost Less and Be Easier to Read
than Paper Ones. By David H. Rothman.

    * Who Wins and Who Loses if Online Libraries Are Affordable?

    * Stamping Out Curiosity: The Trouble with Pay-Per-Read and
"Knowledge Stamps.
    * What If They Bring Up Woz's Garage? Ten Myths and
Responses. No, Apple wasn't started with government help. But an
electronic library system for the whole country is not exactl
going to emerge from Woz's garage. Here's a list of arguments
against TeleRead--and cogent replies.

    * The Origins of TeleRead. It is not a group, just one
writer's idea, though other people are now helping to spread the
word. Opinions here are only my own and not necessarily anyone
else's (except in addendums by William Murrell and Jack Frisch).

    * Acting on the Idea. Why you should not fax or e-mail the
White House or your local member of Congress. Use plain old mail
for reasons I'll explain.

    * How to Reach Me (David Rothman). Please reply directly to
me rather than to the network IDs of the people posting this
file.

    * Copyright Information. Alas, TeleRead does not exist yet,
and cumbersome copyright laws do. So please read the copyright
notice here if you want to publish this proposal on paper--yes
the old-fashioned way--or print long excerpts from it. You do not
need permission to distribute the material online and pass out
disks with the TeleRead file.

    * Addendum One: Is Bridgeport the Future? (And a Few Words on
the Knowledge Crisis in Other Cities.) What happens when cities
cut library funds? nd how are other people responding to the
knowledge crisis?

    * Addendum Two: An African American Reflects on TeleRead and
Affordable Books. By William R. Murrell of MurrellBoston Telesis
(CompuServe  71521,2516; Internet: Wmurrell@Delphi.com; GENIE
HOSB Advisor: W.Murrell1).

    * Addendum Three: TeleRead: One Person's Vision, One Person's
Response. Comments by Jack Frisch, Professor Emeritus,
Communications and the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

    * Addendum Four: TeleRead and the Internet. Is TeleRead's
TRnet a replacement for the Internet? Absolutely not. This
addendum tells how TeleRead could help the Internet, whose
traditional ethos this proposal very much reflects.

    * Addendum Five: A Green Idea--Good for the Environment.
TeleRead would help save energy and, ultimately, alleviate this
country's garbage problem.

    * Addendum Six: How to Make All Books Immortal. The issue is
not just a technical one; it's a human one. Even the Library of
Congress has failed to preserve all the books it should.

    * Addendum Seven: TeleRead and Community Networks. Rather
than replacing community networks, TeleRead would actually
strengthen them. This section tells how.

    * Addendum Eight: What TeleRead Would Mean to the Blind and
Deaf. With all newly published books in digital format in a
virtual central library, it would be much easier for libraries to
service the disabled. In addition, some TeleReaders would be
designed especially with the disabled in mind.

    * Addendum Nine: Of Trolleys and "Savage Inequalities.
TeleRead would be more fair to rural areas and inner cities than
an alternative that some librarians are discussing. Special
licensing arrangements just would not be enough to compensate for
variations in local and state library funding
    * Addendum Ten: How to Use Encryption in Ways that Would Not
Be So Threatening to the Public Interest. I worry about excessive
reliance on encryption to protect e-books. Copyrights last
decades past the lives of creators, and it is risky to rely on
technology that might be bypassed. Just the same, in the interest
of flexibility, I tell how TeleRead could use encryption as a way
to spread copyrighted material around on existing networks such
as the Internet and CompuServe, on BBSes and CD-ROMS, and
ultimately even on tiny chips storing the whole Library of
Congress. Books could still be free to readers.
Encryption-related technology would simply be a way to assur
that dialups were reported so that publishers and writers coul
be receive compensation from the TeleRead program.

   * Addendum Eleven: How TeleRead Could Mean *More* Money for
Companies such as Mead Data and CompuServe. I did not conceive
TeleRead to hurt big information companies, but rather to help
society; and in fact, this proposal could be very good for their
bottom lines if they truly added value. Addendum Eleven tells ho
they could.

   * Addendum Twelve: Updates.


             HOW ELECTRONIC BOOKS COULD COST LESS
            AND BE EASIER TO READ THAN PAPER ONES
                     By David H. Rothman

    The Kid Next Door helped confirm the big bang theory. He was
no longer T.K.N.D. of course--rather, a bearded professor o
astronomy-- but I could still see him as a gangly child perusing
his father's physics journals. Ned was always a reader. Eve
before he could puzzle out words on paper, he was begging hi
mother to read to him about internal combustion engines. Years
later he relied on public libraries, not just the local junkyard
when he built his first telescope. Luckily for science, Dr.
Edward L. Wright grew up in affluent Fairfax County,
Virginia--not in Harlem or Watts, where the libraries were
wanting and where he could never have found those arcane
journals.

    We just cannot say where potential Wrights will show up.
Given current demographics, more will have to come from ghettos,
barrios, and other book-short areas. Suppose, however, that we
live out an old dream of hackers and librarians. What if
computers can drive down the cost of providing books to African
Americans, Hispanics, Appalachians, and, yes, Fairfax Countians?

    Already politicians have proposed online libraries. In the
Scientific American of September 1991, for example, Al Gore
wrote: "We have the technical know-how to make networks that
would enable a child to come home from school and, instead of
playing Nintendo, use something that looks like a video games
machine to plug into the Library of Congress." A technology plan,
unveiled in February 1993 in Silicon Valley, helped confirm the
White House's interest in computer networks for the masses. With
Bill Clinton looking on, Gore even summoned back his high-tech
child. The same child popped back up in December in a major Gor
speech on data highways.

    Questions, however, abound. How much will it cost average
Americans to dial up books, articles, government records, phone
directories, and other material? And what about Al Gore's child?
Just how many books will he or she be able to retrieve without
impoverishing the whole family? Will middlemen make killings at
the expense of the rest of us? If commercial databases are any
clue, the news will be bad. Extensive online research on just one
topic can cost hundreds of dollars today, a real burden for
students or small business people
    What's more, special databases for education would not be the
final answer, even if they were free. The Edward Wrights of this
world need all kinds of information, not just facts from
designated journals. Except for proprietary material, we should
put almost everything online for Americans to dial up for free or
at little cost; and reading-computers should be affordable to
potential users of online libraries.

    Technology is destiny. What's our destiny, though, if video
stores are everywhere but half the school libraries in California
have closed since 1982? Even the libraries in Fairfax County, the
ones where young  Wright read about the galaxy, have cut bac
their hours.

    Some optimists rejoice that private enterprise will take over
from underfinanced public institutions, and that business people
will make billions off an enlarged information industry. As 
country, though, we can never grow richer just by selling bits
and bytes to each other. Real wealth--for example,
100-miles-per-gallon automobiles, cures for cancer, and a
well-informed electorate--will come from how we use information
The fewer price tags on knowledge, the more wealth created.

    One researcher, Robert B. Cohen of the Economic Strategy
Institute in Washington, D.C., says a sophisticated data highway
in the U.S. could add $321 billion to our national wealth over 16
years by making it easier for Americans to exchange ideas,
develop new products faster and enjoy other benefits. Now imagine
the social advantages of universally affordable databases
containing tens of thousands of dial-up books and other material
for our country's Ned Wrights.
    Let me, then, propose a three-part plan, TeleRead, which
would help students, other readers, writers and the American
computer industry, too, and even save the taxpayers money in th
end.
I. Make Powerful, Affordable Computers Available to All

    The student-computer ratio in American public schools is
about 16-1; imagine a bureaucrat at Agriculture or Exxon sharing
a PC with 15 colleagues. So let's start a long-range program to
buy portable computers that schools and libraries can lend to
students and the public at large. Eventually the schools could
even give away TeleReaders to many students from low-income
families. By encouraging mass production, the TeleRead program in
the future would make computers almost as cheap as calculators
so that middle-class children could buy them without any
subsidies.

    Using TeleReaders or substitute machines, students woul
learn word-processors, swap electronic mail, and work with
personal databases, spreadsheets and other applications, such as
educational software. Especially, however, TeleReaders would
encourage reading, the most vital skill. They would be small and
affordable and boast sharp, American-made screens that you
could read more easily than you could a paper book
    The screens would be flickerless; and you could adjust the
size and style of the type, and perhaps the screen colors, too.
If you wanted, you might even detach your TeleReader's keyboard
and curl up in bed with just the thin, light screen. You could
move on to other "pages" or reach other chapters by pressing 
button or by touching the appropriate part of the screen with a
pen-like device. A bar at the bottom of the screen might be
divided into sections that each represented chapters or sections
thereof. Also, the "pen" could let you jot notes electronically,
or underline or highlight key sentences.

    Children could use the electronic pen to write essays by
hand, but in my opinion we should encourage them to switch to
typing by sixth grade. As a rule, good typists are far mor
productive on computers than nontypists are.

    A keyboard-focused approach, however, needn't be eternal,
even if the era of affordable speech recognition turns out to b
late in arriving. Jay Hopkin, a community network organizer i
the Chicago area, has come up with the idea of using a pen-based
computer to recognize shorthand--not just the regular
alphanumerics. With Pittman shorthand, the most proficient
students could *write* at speeds of several hundred words per
minutes. Users could pen in alphanumeric corrections with
styluses; and for extended clean-up work, yes, if need be, they
could rely on keyboards.

    Meanwhile, especially for the keyboard era, we could design
the TeleReaders to be be comfortable for extended periods of
writing the old-fashioned way. You could use a pull-out wire
stand to prop up your screen on your desk. In fact, the stand
could even help you position the screen at the best angle and
height. Different TeleReaders might serve different needs. Some
machines, for example, might be able to read material aloud and
highlight the spoken words on screen--one way to help bring books
to the very young, the vision-impaired, and the semi-literate.
Even early on, we could make TeleReaders with voice recognition
to pick up commands from the handicapped.

   What about printers? Since the screens on TeleReaders would be
so good, you would not have to print out books or magazines. Why
clutter up your house? If need be, however, TeleReaders could
work with low- cost inkjets, lasers or other printers.

   TeleRead wouldn't just promote the production of affordable
portable computers. The program could also make certain tha
machines were used regularly and well--it could help pay the
salaries of computer instructors to bring teachers and librarian
up to speed.

   Let's not turn teachers into programmers, however. Rather,
instructors could show teachers how to apply high-tech
effectively to their respective disciplines.
   Teachers in the future should be able to tell students how t
write clear, well-organized prose with a word-processor, use
spreadsheets, dissect electronic frogs, retrieve facts on a
proposed national budget, or send e-mail notes to local members
of Congress.

   While aiding education, the TeleRead program would be a boo
to Silicon Valley and other high-tech areas hit by defense
cutbacks. Flat screens, new kinds of memory chips, and other
technologies would grow more attractive to our oft-skittish
venture investors. TeleRead would not ban the use of foreign
parts or ideas, but within reason would favor computers with a
high American content. Simply put, TeleRead would be a san
alternative to mindless tariffs such as the duties that the
United States once slapped on some foreign-made screens fo
laptops.
   Moreover, since the government would buy finished equipment,
Washington would not need to set up a big research and
development bureaucracy for TeleRead. Rather, the taxpayers could
benefit from competition for TeleRead contracts and Silicon
Valley could do its own R&D.

   What's more, the government would issue clear-cut standards
for equipment so many vendors could compete on the basis of
price, equipment capabilities, and past performance. A TeleRea
agency could encourage small companies to team up with larger
ones if doubts existed about their abilities to meet the demands
of major contracts.
   Also to protect the taxpayers, the program would not buy u
scads of portable computers at once; it would wait until the
technology improved enough to justify truly large purchases. Even
then, the program could send out RFPs on an ongoing basis to
avoid overcommitment to outdatable technology
II. Set Up a National Database As Soon as Possibl
    TRnet, part of the TeleRead program, would offer an
electronic cornucopia. Like most public libraries, it would avoid
pay-per-read. TRnet would be free or would charge low
subscription fees based on annual family income, and perhap
included as an option on federal tax forms. The poorest
Americans, of course, should be able to dial up TRnet without
paying a penny. Think of the I word, consider TRnet an investment
in our economic and intellectual development, and use general
revenue money to make the network affordable to all.

    Reachable from anywhere in th U.S., TRnet would carry the
full texts of all new books and other publications. How? Material
longer than 10,000 words, and intended for publication, would
have to be in digital form on TRnet for a copyright to stick.
Existing domestic copyright law would be changed as needed.

    We mustn't split hair at the expense of creators, so,
certainly, exceptions could exist. For instance, if someone stol
from an unfinished novel before the author had a chance to
publish it, the writer would still enjoy full protection. So
would an author shopping around for a publisher of a book o
article. What's more, originators of informal postings on BBS
systems, the Internet, and other networks would not have to
register material to enjoy copyright protection.

    Generally, however, the rule would apply. The government
would phase in such a requirement with a voluntary program. As
for undigitized material shorter than 10,000 words, scanners
could pick up the images, either for conversion to computer text
or as pictures to be dialed up on TRnet.

    The United States would work closely with other countries to
make such changes possible. Already TeleRead is in keeping wit
the Berne Convention's intent to protect creators; as explained
later, most writers would fare much better under TeleRead than
under the present system. Still, TeleRead should be within the
letter of international law, not just the spirit, and th
solution is obvious: change the laws. The task is not so
formidable as it might seem. The whole world is asking the same
questions that we in the United States are: Just how can society
compensate creators fairly and also make information affordable
to rich and poor alike? And what to do about the flow of
intellectual property across national borders by way of computer
networks?

    In the U.S. and elsewhere, debates are also heating up over
the technologies that information networks could use to transmit
books and other material. I propose no single solution. TRnet
could use old-fashioned phone lines, fiber optic cables, or
radio--whatever cost the least. No matter what the technology,
the results would be impressive. The Great Gatsby could reach you
in a fraction of the time it took to watch a rerun of "I Love
Lucy."

    Before you hooked into the network, you would answer a series
of easy questions to pinpoint exactly what you needed. you might
punch in the name of an author, dial up the network and instantly
get a list of all of his or her works, with quick descriptions
Then your TeleReader would disconnect you from the network. At
your leisure, without tying up the phone lines, you would go on
to choose which books you wanted sent into your computer when you
logged on a second time
    You could select not only by author, but also by publishers,
your own pre-designated groups of publishers, editor, general
category,subject, search words, geographical setting, or other criteria.

    If you keyed in "Washington" and "novels," you would see everythin
from  Democracy to Washington, D.C. Or suppose you added the wor
"black  literature"; then you could call up Afro-American fiction
from the  local writers. Inner-city teachers could easily track
down books that  meant thousands of times more to bright
teenagers than anything on  television. In fact, they could
tailor reading assignments to individual  children.
    Electronic indexes needn't be the only technique with which
TeleRead might eventually direct users to the right material. Via
hypertext, you could highlight a word or phrase and be referred
to another place in a text, or even to another book or article.
Or you might use intelligent sgents, sometimes described as
electronic butlers.

    Intelligent agents could prowl networks, looking for material
of greatest interest to you, even while you slept. As
telecommunications costs shrank, the agents could grow in
importance. Certainly if we trusted agent-style software to
ferret out books for us, a centralized subscription arrangement
such as TeleRead would make more sense than a motley series o
collections from providers of often-pricey information. What if
an agent accidentally downloaded megabyte after megabyte of
material from a commercial library that charged outrages fees? Or
suppose that an agent-created summary misled you into thinking
that an expensive e-book was much more valuable to you than i
actually was? A truly centralized TRnet with low-cost, flat-fee
subscription rates would end such risks. (For a clear explanation
of intelligent agents, see Steve Levy's article in the May 1993
issue of Macworld.)

    Although I have mentioned books and article in examples
TRnet could carry educational software, too, from which teachers
and students could choose the best programs for them. Math and
science students could especially benefit. And young immigrants
could use software rich in moving images and synthesized speec
to help learn English. In addition, it is also possible that
TRnet could carry business and entertainment programs from people
who now distribute their work as  shareware. Let the software
community help decide if TeleRead should include shareware of a
noneducational nature. Certainly, given the high rate of piracy
at many schools, TeleRead should cover educational software at
the very least
   Educational videos also might be included eventually, and
perhaps digitally transmitted radio programs of National Public
Radio or similar  networks. If NPR wanted, it could send out
computer files of All Things  Considered to be retrieved at the
recipients' convenience. A private service called Internet Radio
already offers digitized interviews for technically oriented
people. The service even features a "Geek of the Week" spot.

    Someday TeleRead could also offer electronic reproductions of
art. That is exactly what the Library of Congress is already
trying in a small way through a noteworthy experiment on the
America Online service. Multi-media experts at the Library look
forward to the time when people at home could take
virtual-reality tours through great art galleries of the world.

    The main purpose of TRnet, though, should be to preserve the
written word. So often it is the best way to pass on detailed
instructions, tell stories, and convey abstract idea and
feelings. Powerful interests are aggressively promoting the
growth of multi-media; now we need TeleRead to protect the
survival of text.

    Whatever the medium, TRnet would pay fairly. For example,
software houses or independent programmers would receive fee
based essentially on the number of times the public dialed up
their creations. And the same arrangement could apply to
individual articles from newspapers and other publications. When
writers kept rights to the articles, then payment would go to
them.

    TRnet would allow publications a delay--maybe two weeks for
daily newspapers and eight weeks for monthly periodicals--before
the network posted issues online for all to see. The online
editions could be highly customized for individual subscribers,
just as some experts now foresee. These electronic periodicals
could even offer interactive ads through which subscribers coul
order merchandise--which TeleReaders eventually would be able to
display in color, and with moving images
    Newspapers and magazines could rely directly on phone
companies and cable systems to speed these current editions to
paid subscribers, but often TRnet might make more sense.
Understandably, many newspapers see phone companies as rival
publishers. Suppose, however, that telecommunications firms
signed long-term contracts with TRnet; then the network could act
as a buffer between them and the newspapers that subleased th
lines at discount rates. The proposed merger of Bell Atlantic an
TCI is just one more example of the need for TRnet to protect
newspapers and other information providers
    What about TRnet's compensation for professional writers of
books--and for their publishers? Authors could sell to TRnet
directly, or, armed with this new bargaining power, they could
sign contracts with publishers. Without heavy production and
distribution costs, publishers could pay far better. Under
TeleRead, writers and publishers would earn fees based on how
often people retrieved books, and perhaps on other criteria such
as length and subject matter. As a mass purchaser of material,
TRnet could pay de-escalating royalties on best-sellers to
discourage publishers from overhyping "big" books at the expense
of mid-list titles. Publishers could set advances by the expecte
number of dial-ups. Outside business people could pay authors and
publishers for rights to anticipated dial-up fees; let Wall
Street invest in literary futures.

    Yes, if TRnet gouged readers, then the public would bootleg
books electronically and cheat authors, publishers, and literary
investors; but if network use were free or low cost, piracy jus
would not be worth the trouble. Electronic books especially
demand protection of this nature. Aging better than most
newspaper and magazine, they can be excellent prey for
bootleggers.

    TeleRead, howver, would safeguard e-books better than any
copy protection scheme that technologists might cook up. Copy
protection can often be just plain cumbersome; it's the last
thing we need if we want to make reading as easy as possible.
Users will demand the ability to back up or print information.
And even if the computer world could devise a seemingly painless
way to safeguard digitized text from bootlegging in the usual
fashion, pirates could simply print out the material and then
scan it back into digized form. Inevitably, in fact, bootleggers
could make the process all-electronic. Even CD- ROMs will not be
safe in the future: you don't have to be Sony to be able to copy
them. And the more powerful computers grow, the easier it will be
to defeat our existing copy-protection schemes for all kinds o
media.

    Many hackers love a challenge and enjoy sharing the fruits of
their labor with the world at large. The other day I copied off
the Internet the text of a very short book that sold in disk form
for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and that self-destructed
when read electronically. Hackers had defeated all protection, in
effect placing William Gibson's Agrippa in the public domain. I
saw a message from a man in the U.K. asking for a copy. A helpfu
soul responded quite publicly, as if he were uploading a freeware
copy of Moby Dick. Posted in the alt.etext newsgroup, the pirated
work whizzed from continent to continent.

    I was not surprised to learn that Gibson had expected his
e-text to be ripped off. Probably he wouldn't have minded the
publicity. At any rate, it's interesting that Gibson's publisher
admitted early on that a supercomputer could crack the code. We
already have tiny palmtop computers more powerful than the big
mainframes of yore, and such trends are likely to continue.

    Now place this in the context of copyright law. Copyrights
are not just for five or ten years. They last decades; in fact,
they can outlast writers: we're talking widows and orphans here
If I die before my wife, and if Carly can no longer work, shoul
she have to cut back on necessities because the copyright syste
failed? Basing our copyright laws on the protective technologies
du jour could be like building a nuclear reactor and relying on
advice from the administrators of Chernobyl.

    Plainly encryption (at least as normally envisioned) would
not be a panacea for popular books and many other kinds of
material, illegal versions of which could be reproduced from
authorized copies. Copying controls similar to the recording
industry's just would not work. Skeptics have complained of
crippled technology in digital audio recorders for consumers, and
a stereo magazine has even described easy ways to bypass the copy
protection. Readers of electronic books would hate this intrusive
technology even more. They would want to manipulate and share
information without worrying about obnoxious protection schemes
kicking in after the first- or second-generation copy.
Countermeasures would proliferate, everything from sophisticated
software to the scanning of printouts.

    Professional cyberthieves would thrive. And amateurs may do
just as well. "You could join a collective to purchase some
information and decrease your actual cost by orders of
magnitude--that is, until it is almost free," one hacker was
quoted in the summer 1993 issue of The Whole Earth Review. He
praised such arrangements as "increasing the margins where the
poor can survive.
    That is the ethos that our legal system will face if we do
not change the letter of copyright law to preserve the spirit.
Get set for Prohibition II--the cybernetic equivalent of the
bathtub-gin era-- in which law-breaking becomes the norm. Yes,
existing computer software tends not to have copyright
protection, and major bootlegging does occur already; but illegal
users often go legal in the end because they want technical
advice. By contrast, the readers of electronic books wouldn't
need such assistance and could more easily share and sell the
pirated copies.

   Another reason exists for not building our copyright system
around kooky encryption schemes: the high fees that
encryptionists might inflict on publishers and writers. A
encryption company called Wave Systems "wants to charge
information providers roughly 35 cents on each sales dollar,"
according to an article in the PC Week of December 13, 1993.
Reportedly Wave is "willing to offer as much as half of its tak
to PC makers as an incentive to install the chip on their
machines and other computing devices."

   What's significant here is that Wave is not just another
startup; its CEO is Peter Sprague of National Semiconductor fame.
One of his investors, according to PC Week, is the journalist
George Gilder, the oft-quoted expert on the business side of th
information age. Ideally, Mr. Gilder can ask Mr. Sprague a few
questions. Just how fair and efficient would electronic
publishing be if 35 percent of the revenue went to to the
encryptionists? And even with government regulation, is it
possible that encryptionists would pull some fast ones on naive
writers and publishers if we based our whole copyright system
around encryption?

   Granted, encryption can be a valuable way to protect
privacy--I wouldn't mind it at all if Messrs. Sprague and Gilder
raked in a bundle off encryption-enhanced e-forms of the kin
described later in this propsal. But let's not make encryption
our *main* defense against piracy. (If we must use encryption,
let's use it in connection with a TeleRead-style approach such as
the plan described in one of the addendums to this proposal
TeleRead-style encryption would be more secure in that there
would be fewer incensives for bypassing it because of the cost o
books would be so low. The encryption would be just a means to
assure proper compensation for writers and publishers from a
national fund.)

    That still leaves open another possibility: What about
advertisements as a way to compensate book publishers for losse
from illegal copying? Why not have ad after ad in best-sellers s
that bootlegging would just mean more exposure for advertisers
Understandably, however, many good publishers might oppose ads in
practice and principle. If too conspicuous, ads would lessen the
worth of serious books requiring sustained concentration. I
myself can envision unintrusive ads in some books, but would hate
to see them become the rule, as they might without TeleRead. Some
large advertisers would be loath to sponsor "downbeat" or
controversial books; and our national literature would become
more TVish than ever. Moreover, the written equivalents of sleazy
infomercials would grow more prominent in the publishing
industry. And schoolchildren, millions of whom are already forced
to sit thorugh Channel One's pitches for fast food and through
other hard sell, would end up with ad-riddled textbooks. Such
would be life without TeleRead.

   If we did go the TeleRead route, would the virtual central
database itself invite abuses? Could the unscrupulous type their
names over and over again, go on for 60,000 words, and have
friends dial these nonbooks at public expense? Unlikely. Anyone
could post almost anything on TRnet, after storage costs dropped
sufficiently; but professional librarians, each working within
his or her own allotments, could help decide which works merited
royalties. The librarians would be at national, state and local
levels.

    After a certain number of dial-ups, almost any book or
program could earn fees regardless of the wishes of th
librarians. Writers and publishers would also be able to bypass
librarians by gambling a certain amount of money up front to
reduce the number of dial-ups required for royalties. The
TeleRead laws might require TRnet to reserve maybe a quarter or
third of its acquisitions budget for "bypass books," as I'll cal
them: books that librarians did not approve. By raising or
lowering the fees charged authors or publishers, the network
could help control the total bypass expenditures. Sharpl
de-escalating royalties on the very biggest best-sellers would
also keep a lid on costs.

    That still leaves open the question of TeleRead's total
expenses. To be hypothetical, suppose we could immediately put
all paper books and some other material on TRnet. My tentative
estimates add up to $30.05 billion:

    * $10 billion for online books, which would be more
appropriate than the less than $5 billion that book publishers
most likely spent on writers and editorial employees today. The
$5 billion is my estimate based on a book industry study and on
informal talks with publishing authorities. In a nation with a
Gross Domestic Product of more than $6 trillion a year, it is an
outrage that so little now goes for editorial  expenses
associated with books. All of society suffers when book writers--
major disseminators of knowledge--do not receive fair
compensation for their work. If you want to place the present $
billion in context, consider the 1992 revenues of just one
company in the computer industry, Intel. The gross reached some
$5.8 billion.

    While sending more money in the direction of writers, TeleRead
would also help good publishers. Yes, writers could publish
direct. But good publishing houses that added value--for example,
through editing and intelligent promotion--would also find a
place and earn *more* money.
    * $0 for fresh editions of newspapers and
magazines--including academic journals--since TRnet would be a
mere conduit
    * $5 billion for past editions and old articles. That's a
fifth of the approximately $25 billion that American readers pay each
year for newspapers and the magazines, according to Commerce
Department figures.

    * $50 million for articles and papers that TRnet bought
directly. As any professional writer or academic can tell you,
some of the most  valuable writing will never find readers
because it is outside the  commercial or academic formats o
existing publications. Granted, thousands of Americans would
upload material to TRnet without counting on financial rewards
But 'TRnet could at least hold out a slim possibility
of pay. The amount of money in this category would be kept small,
so that TRnet was not competing with commercial newspapers an
magazines.

    * $3 billion for educational software, or about three times
the amount that schools and families now spend if you extrapolate
from statistics of the Software Publishers Association.

    * $2 billion for computers for libraries, schools and some low-
income people, and some computer training programs for librarians
and teachers. A billion dollars could buy a million TeleReaders
at $1,000 each, or, eventually, 10 million computers at $100
each. Again, the idea is not to give every American a machine,
but rather to spur production of good, affordable portables for
reading.

    * $10 billion for staffers, telecommunications and leasing of
computer facilities. Many would consider the $10 billion to be
far high. I've tried to err on the cautious side, extrapolating
from figures for present online services, which lack TeleRead's
economies of scale. Staff costs would be low since TRnet woul
rely heavily on existing librarians, who are already accustomed
to choosing books for public use. Telecommunications might well
be the biggest cost. Rather than squandering tax money on rapidly
outdatable technology, the government could rely on cable systems
and private phone companies. As much as possible, TeleRead could
take advantage of the nooks and crannies of existing networks.
The system might even offer bargain subscriptions to user willing
to dial up their books outside peak times. Also, TeleRead could
lease private computer facilities to avoid technoloc
(technolock: n. A tendency of many large bureaucracies to keep
using antique equipment to justify past investment).

    The hypothetical $30.05 billion total is about two percent of
the federal government's 1993 budget, or around half a percent of
the Gross Domestic Product. What's more, the actual first-year
expenses of TeleRead could be in the hundreds of millions, and
perhaps much less. Only a minority of Americans would sign up in
the beginning if we limited the first users to public domai
material and specialized books and articles of a scientific,
technical, medical or educational nature. What's more, as
suggested by an acquaintance of mine, the program could includ
only older books at the start (works that publishers otherwise
would simply remainder). And of course it could be voluntary.
Modest subscriptions fees--maybe $50-$100 per year for an average
family--could help pay for this scaled-down program.

    Let a lean TeleRead sell itself. Then, as the economy picks
up and reading computers grow more powerful, support will pick up
for a full-service system that can give Edward Wrights all the books
they  needed.

    Of course, TeleRead and its TRnet should be just one option
for readers. We should still be able to buy electronic or paper
books from publishers, stores and authors. That would be one wa
to cope with the risk of censorship by politicians. Another way
would be to  make TeleRead an independent agency with long-range
funding, or, at  the very least, insulate a part of the Library
of Congress from political influence.

    Also, TRnet must not compromise privacy. If the program
charged nothing or just flat subscription fees, there would be no
need to keep permanent records on the reading choices o
individuals. When you retrieved a controversial political
work--in fact, anything-- your  machine would tell TRnet to pay
the author or publisher. But the central  computers would be
programmed to forget your personal selections in  a week or two
TRnet would keep the temporary records only as a way  to guar
against constant dial-ups by those profiting off them.

    What's more, for the really worried, private companies such as
Barnes & Noble could set up vending machines that would accept
old-fashioned, untraceable paper money as well as nameless debit
cards.  The machines would copy books onto a tiny memory card
that plugged into your computer and held many volumes. Bearing
bright logos, such machines could be a fixture at malls, airports
and other public areas. They could serve both the privacy-minded
and people who just did not want to become regular subscribers
(revenue would go both to TRnet and operators of the vending
machines).

    America's bookstores, and copy shops, could also profit i
other ways. For readers who favored paper books, they could print
out material distributed on the network. The book industry has
long talked about paper books on demand as a way to reduce
inventory problems. TRnet might electronically transmit
eye-appealing covers and page layouts; and with the
high-resolution color printers of the future, these
books-on-demand could win over even the most die-hard
technophobes. Each  time a store downloaded a book, the author or
publisher would receive  a dial-up fee as if a reader had logge
on to TRnet directly.

    Printing machinery could hook into TRnet to report multiple
copies--no great burden on the merchants' part, since they would
pay low subscription charges for unlimited access to whol
network. Of course paper has its environmental costs. But as on
reader of this proposal has suggested, discarded papers books
could be recycled--perhaps for  credit. Without doubt, instantly
printed books hold great promise as transitional technology.

    In the end, however, TeleRead's purely electronic books would
be the best, most economical way to spread the written word.
Without TeleRead, students, teachers, and other Americans may
never be able to read so much and so cheaply by way of one
easy-to-use database. Dr. Vicki Hancock, an educational
technology expert at the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development in Alexandria, Va., says: "This program
would benefit average students as well as gifted ones, and it
would better prepare Americans for work in an information-
dependent society."
III: Cost-Justify TeleRead By Encouraging the Use of TeleReaders
For Government-Related Paperwor
    Around Washington nowadays, some talk of taking money from
rich users of high-tech services to pay for the database
requirements of the poor. I'm all in favor of user-to-user
subsidies for purposes such as assuming universal telephone
service. However, this regulatory model is wrong, wrong, wrong in
a database context. The money just won't be there. Subsidizing
databases is different from subsidizing Plain Old Telephone
Service. If our schools are fair to the children of the poor,
their database needs will be too extensive and too unpredictable.
The rich will give up only so much to the children of the slums.
Meanwhile, demographical trends will only worsen the problem; in
California, for example, well-off white people hate to spend
money on schools and libraries for black, brown, an
yellow-skinned children. Given the increases expected in minority
populations, California could be a forerunner for many other
states. And what applies to tax money will apply to user-to-use
subsidies; and despite all the Robin Hood talk, the poor will
only lose in the end
    Suppose, however, that we use a new model. What if high-tech
can transfer resources from bureaucracy to spread of knowledge?
Visit a government office, and you'll see batteries of clerks
typing away, tapping out data from citizens and businesses. What
a waste. In total time and money the burden on us is even greater
than on the government itself; paperwork diverts Americans from
more productive activites. But let's say you could could fill out
forms on TeleReaders or equivalent  machines, then send the
information over the phone lines--directly to government
computers. Easy-to-use software could guide you as you  worked on
your taxes or otherwise engaged in an official transaction.
    These programs would be no dummies. You would supply the relevant
facts about your family or business, and then the software woul
tailor the questions to you and discard irrelevant ones. Perhaps
you could even switch on a synthesized voice--if you wanted--to
reinforce the instructions you saw on the screen. What's more,
the programs might tie in with commercial software meeting
official specs, so that, for example, you would not have to
re-enter items from your electronic checkbook (perhaps downloaded
from another computer). Indeed private industry could suppl
"TeleForm" programs of its own for people not wanting to use the
official software. Public or private, the software would let you
know how it toted up your taxes--and let you change any entry if
you disagreed. The Internal Revenue Service might challenge your
return later on, but at least you would still enjoy just as muc
control over the tax form as you do now.

    Working with these TeleForms, we'd all come out ahead. We would
spend less time and money keeping Uncle happy. Small businesses,
especially, would welcome the reduction in paperwork, which is as
much a cost of government as taxes themselves are. And the
bureaucracies could  more easily digest the information--without
any need to rekey it, and with less need to pester citizens about
errors or missing facts. Moreover, TeleRead's forms would be wel
enough structured to encourage more responsive answers. Moreover,
since TeleReaders would use pen interfaces, not just keyboards,
citizens could even sign tax papers and augment digital
identification the old-fashioned way.
    Tax forms are just one example of how TeleRead could help
Americans in areas besides reading. What about Social Security
forms? Software could deal with all kinds of "ifs" when Americans
applied for benefits. We could reduce the staffs of hundreds of
local Social Security offices-- doing this slowly over a period
of time to cushion effects on workers. Similarly, government a
all levels could use "TeleForms" to handle matters ranging from
drivers licenses to unemployment compensation, health-care
claims, and applications for government-backed loans. What's
more, e-forms and databases could help match up workers and jobs
in a truly massive but cost-effective way. Imagine the benefits
for small business.

    Computerized forms, of course, are hardly a revolutionary
idea. Even now, with inexpensive software, you can create a paper
tax-return or even an application to work for the government. An
the IRS is working toward electronic filing of returns from
ordinary citizens directly--not just from tax-preparation firms.
IRS also plans to spend a fortune on scanners to pick data from
paper returns. But direct filing by computer is the future, i
the National Performance Review is any indication. TeleRead would
dramatically advance such goals. It would drive down the cost o
computers for all, promote mass computer literacy, and encourage
refinement of computerized forms.

    As I have said earlier, a huge TeleRead program should not start
immediately. But imagine the potential for greater efficiency i
government when TeleRead reaches full size and many of us use
TeleForms. Americans today are spending several hundred billions
of dollars a year in time and money on paperwork for the federal
government alone, according to the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce;
and that amount doesn't include the burden at the local and state
level. Whether the Chamber is exactly on target or not, the
amount is surely mind-boggling. If electronic forms can trim th
total by just a fraction, we are talking about tens of billions
of dollars of savings from increased efficiency--or enough to
justify TeleRead and still come out ahead. Remember, the cost of
government isn't just in taxes; it's in paperwork. Why turn rich
against poor when TeleRead could shift these resources and make
more information available to all?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Even with financial benefits galore, skeptics might dismiss
TeleRead and its TRnet as socialistic; but they are not, any more
than a public library. If Andrew Carnegie--the 19th-century
capitalist extraordinaire--were alive today, he would be
probably be funding demonstration projects, just as he helped
small-town libraries across the United States, hoping that
ambitious Americans could use the technology of the day to better
themselves.

   David H. Rothman is the author of The Complete Laptop Compute
Guide (St. Martin's Press).
===================================================================

                 WHO WINS AND WHO LOSES IF
             ONLINE LIBRARIES ARE AFFORDABLE?

   No, electronic books will not make all teachers and librarians
go the way of blacksmiths--quite the contrary. Even book chain
could find new roles. On the other hand, TeleRead could be
traumatic for some of the more mediocre of Washington's
think-tankers.
    Move ahead twenty years now; here's life in the TeleRead era.
Teachers and Students in General

    Humans in the classroom offer kindness and encouragement that
silicon chips can never replace. Teachers dial up TRnet to lear
their subject matters better. On paper and in classroom
discussion, they demand more of students--who can tap into the
same databases. With so many books and educational programs to
retrieve, teachers can customize lessons for students with all
learning styles. If high school students show enough discipline,
they can spend just several hours each day in school.

    Also, students suffer less rote learning and fewer
multi-choice exams. TeleRead has revived the old-fashioned essay
as a way to teach the research skills and logical thinking that
21st-century workers need. Students modem in their term papers.
>From elementary school on, they accustom themselves to working
off computer screens.

    Schools at all levels save billions on textbooks and have
more to spend on other resources and faculty salaries. And
students at public schools and state universities can retrieve
the same books as those at prep schools or Ivy League
institutions.

    What's more, students can keep using TRnet long after they
earn their college diplomas. Back in the '90s, some farsighted
educators proposed that colleges and universities build the costs
of electronic books into tuition; and certainly such an approach
would have been superior to the old system of overpriced paper
textbooks. But it was not the ultimate solution, not in an era
when Americans needed to keep updating their skills. The
educators realized, then, that there was a better way, and they
lobbied for affordable books for all citizens on and off campus.
They understood the mission of great universities: not just t
enlighten students, but also society at large.

Professors of Literature--and Historians

    Taking advantage of dramatic reductions in the cost of mass
storage, TeleRead lets most everyone contribute to the central
database. Granted, readers can filter out the extraneous and
restrict searches to publishers of their choice, but they at
least have the capacity to track down out anything. One database
contains all--everything from first novels to Homer
    Now, think what this mean to professors of literature.
Centuries from now, academics can discover obscure works that
mean more to them than the most heralded books of the current
century. Does not each generation relive the past? At the sam
time, this secure database means that already-ancient classics
can better survive TV, multi- media, and the rest
    Historians benefit, too. With so many thousands of
contemporary manuscripts preserved, future researchers wil
better understand our politics and culture. TeleRead is be an
electronic time capsule.

    See the addendum "How to Make All Books Immortal." Als
please see the "Everyone" section of this essay.

Librarians

    Paper books remain on library shelves. But spending for new
ones has fallen off steeply. Librarians teach patrons to use
TRnet, offer assistance online, and help the national progra
select books that immediately qualify for dial up fees. Th
profession enjoys new power. Well-educated librarians play a
bigger role in determining the nation's reading tastes than do
the marketers at the large book chains.

    Compared to the past, today's librarians devote less time t
clerical duties and more time to judging the worth of potential
acquisitions. Under pressure from librarians with easy access to
a wide variety of facts, book publishers are more diligently
fact-checking their nonfiction than in past years.

    This is not to say that librarians reign unchallenged.
Publishers and writers can bypass the librarians more easily than
they could bypass the large book chains of the past.

Small Bookstores

    Book-loving proprietors still cater to traditionalists who
favor the paper books.

    For a few dollars, however, a bookstore or copy shop will
print out a paper copy of anything online and put it in an
attractive binding. When a store runs off a paper copy, the
author or publisher will receive the standard dial-up fee. If the
store makes 25 of copies of a single book, its machinery simpl
reports the fact to the TRnet-- but the store pays nothing extra,
since TRnet is flat-fee. Merchants pay fees through the Interna
Revenue Service and would be guilty of tax fraud if the
misreported the incomes on which the fees were based. But the
fees are so small that this rarely happens.
    What about the prices of these instant books to consumers?
Since readers can dial up material directly on TRnet, the
bookstores and copy shops try to keep prices reasonable.

    Publishers, of course, do what they can to encourage dial-ups
by stores as well as individuals. Via TRnet, they transmi
digital information through which local stores could print
attractive covers and page layouts.

    Besides offering paper books, small stores have set up
vending machines that can copy electronic books onto memory cards
owned by the customers. Even the bookstore owners will not know
the choices of customers who insert paper money or nameless debit
cards into the machines.

   Certain bookstores have also become publishers, often
specializing in locally oriented books. Thanks to TeleRead,
however, it's easy to distribute *all* books nationally.

   Many good clerks have remained behind to sell paper books,
answer customers' questions, and put out chatty newsletters
online that draw people into the stores to discuss books and meet
local authors. Some other clerks have left the business and
become literacy instructors, teachers, editors, and, yes,
writers.

Bookstore Chains

    Like the small stores, chains still sell pape
books*traditional or printed out from TeleRead. They also
    * Sell TeleReaders with capabilities far beyond those of
basic models.
    * Have installed thousands of book-vending macines in thei
stores and in public places.

    * Offer electronic networks, too, for people who would rather
not deal directly with the TeleRead program. The program lets the
chains enjoy enough of a markup to make such efforts worthwhile.
    * Encourage their local stores to imitate independent stores
and publish online newsletters--and otherwise serve the people of
Albuquerque, Chicago, or San Jose.

    * Publish books themselves.

    Since books are available directly to consumers everywhere by
way of TRnet, the chains no longer dictate to the publishing
world as they once did. But a major role for them still exits.
And of course, some chains have themselves become publishers.

Book Publisher
    Editors have risen in importance in the book industry; sale
reps and marketers have declined. The overwhelming majority of
professionally edited titles qualify for royalties on TRnet; if
they do not, the publisher can pay to get them on the network a
"bypass books." All publishers enjoy coast-to-coast distribution.
What's more, readers can easily key in list of their favorite
publishers to limit the scope of subject searches or check up on
the latest offerings from Random House, St. Martin's, or whatever
other houses they favor-- small publishers or large
    Midlist works thrive. Publishers of all kinds have grown more
adventurous in their selections since they do not need to gambl
fortunes on paper, printers and warehouse space. They no longer
worry about local or federal governments taxing their back lists
to the detriment of non-best-sellers. What's more, publishers no
longer have to bow so often in the direction of chains obsessed
with sales. They will encourage stores to tell customers about
their latest, greatest books; but they no longer must endlessly
court the chains' book-buyers
    Thanks to TeleRead, the transition to electronic books was
less bumpy than publishers expected. When a voluntary program
started, some publishers even used TRnet as a way to test th
market for certain paper books. Now, of course, virtually all new
books are available electronically. Also online are many old
titles that were copyrighted before TeleRead; authors and
publishers naturally gravitated to the biggest market.

Newspapers and Magazines

    Like paper books, traditional newspapers and magazines hav
not vanished, but sooner or later, most readers switch to TRnet.
Good reporters and editors thrive.Publishers must offer enticing
news and prose, or see start-ups take business away. Many old
publications, however, are earning bigger profits these
days--since they spend less on paper, printing and distribution,
and since Americans are more word-oriented. TeleRead is the
ultimate newspaper-in-the-classroom program. Students dial up
textbooks on the same machine they can use to read the New Yor
Times or the Chicago Tribune
Writers of Books and Articles

    Few have become millionaires, just as in the past; but thanks
to TeleRead's de-escalating royalty rates, the average writer
stands more of a chance of enjoying a middle-class income
Technical, scientific, and medical writers fare much better than
before. Instant publication allows books and articles to appear
with fresh, easily updated facts, spurring innovation in the
fields about which the authors have written. The big losers are
the best-selling authors who are better marketers than writers.

Software Developers

    Small software houses can distribute their wares more easil
than ever--either for free or for very reasonable charges.
    Back in the 1990s, many Americans programmers were not that
different from writers. They came up with original ideas, but
often had to pay too much to middlemen. Now a programmer on 
West Virginia hilltop can reach big urban markets even if he (or
she) lacks contacts with national software chains. He needn'
rely on the uncertainties of shareware distribution.

    TeleRead has been especially helpful to publishers of
educational software. No longer is bootlegging so major a threat.

The Elderly
    TeleReaders have sparked a boom in reading among older
Americans. The machines can vary the size and style of type t
make reading as enjoyable as possible for people with poor
vision. Pleasant, synthesized voices can read out anything
The Disabled

    Why stop at wheelchair ramps for public libraries and
bookstores? Thanks to TeleRead, even the bedridden can enjoy
whole libraries. Affordable machines respond to spoken commands
and can take dictation. They make telecommuting--working from
home--far easier for the disabled
Politicians and Bureaucrats
    Sleazes lose more elections; honest politicians do better.
Average Americans can easily use TRnet to scour government
records, and also to retrieve the precise wording of politicians'
past promises. Voters can see the words that the candidates
themselves posted online. That is the norm. It isn't just limited
to the high-tech elite.

    What's more, via TRnet, people can write back to politician
and bureaucrats at all levels of government, while knowing
exactly which ones to complain to. Do you want a traffic light
near your intersection on the George Washington Memorial Parkway
TRnet will bring you up to date on the relevant laws an
regulations, the accident rates, and whom you should contact a
National Park Service.

    TeleRead makes government more attentive than push-button TV
plebiscites ever could. If a GS-15 tells you to get lost, then
you can whiz copies of your correspondence to the newspapers and
broadcasters, and if journalists ignore you, then you might post
your grievance on an electronic bulletin board and organize other
voters to pressure the bureaucracy. Not that TeleRead is
anti-government worker. Quite the opposite! The best workers an
their supervisors welcome TeleRead as an opportunity to serve th
public better by being more responsive. Agenciess can fine-tune
programs and plan ahead more effectively; that means less tension
for federal employees at the working level.

    Like the push-button TV approach, TeleRead does allow the
public to register opinions on issues--in this case, at local,
state, and national levels. However, those votes are not truly
instant since not all citizens have an opportunity to vote at
same time. Furthermore, politicians are not expected to abide by
these polls. Indeed, their opponents may accuse them of wimping
out if they hew too closely to all the results of the votes.
Society recognizes that participants in electronic balloting may
be better off--with more time to participate in civic
duties--than the nation as a whole. Just the same, by encouraging
mass computer literacy, TeleRead makes the online votes much more
representative than they would be otherwise. If nothing else,
TeleRead allows ordinary people to keep up with government more
easily than before. Hence, public opinion means more.
    No longer are there outrages such as the one in North Carolina in
the mid-1990's. Back then, a fax newspaper was charging $1,200 a
year to tell subscribers about the status of bills in the State
Legislature. As you'd expect, customers of The Insider were rich
anks, giant corporations, and the like. Mind you, the hardworking
editors of the fax newspaper were not to blame. They were jus
fulfilling a legitimate need. But why couldn't the state
government have gone online and made the basic information
convenient t everyone with a computer--not just the rich and
powerful? Without such measures, how could the American public
not have been cynical about government at all levels? Luckily, in
Washington and state capitals such as Raleigh, major information
reforms started even before TeleRead. the Government Printing
Office began disseminating many documents electronically, and
states cobbled together their own networks
    Acting as a central network, however, TRnet greatly reduce
the cost of online governments, enlarged their scope, and made
the networks much simpler for the nontechnical. Moving from
Boston to Charlotte? Nowadays you can use the same easy network
commands to find out about government in your new state.

    No matter where you live, you can dial up just as many public
databases on politicians as the wealthiest lobbyists can. You can
log on TRnet, key in the issues of greatest interest to you, the
receive a list of relevant bills and actions at all level of
government. Plain-English summaries of the bills, and thei
actual words, are readily available. So are politicians' voting
records on those issues. You can even jump to newspaper and
magazine articles--from many local and national publications--on
the subjects discussed.

    The results are (1) greater faith in government and (2) more
responsive government, since citizens can act on information once
it is available. No longer is government a voodoo process hidden
from all but the elite. Large banks, wealthy corporations, and
other institutions have benefited, too--in the sense that
TeleRead has led to greater social stability, not just a
better-educated workforce
Literary Agents and Lawyers

    Writers can publish directly on TRnet, but most pros continue
to rely on editing and promotion from publishers. Literary agents
and lawyers are still around to help authors negotiate with
publishers and Hollywood.

    Also, TRnet is a good research tool for lawyers of all kinds,
whom private information services can no longer gouge. Lawyers
and nonlawyers alike can look up official explanations--in clea
language-- of local, state, and national laws. Needless to say,
records of important court decisions and Justice Department
documents are easily available. The JURIS mess of the early 1990s
taught us all a lesson-- hat public documents must belong to the
public.

Americans Selling to International Markets

    The United States helps other nations start their own
TeleRead programs, and negotiates agreements with countries where
similar programs exist. An international agency carefully audits
the dial-- up counts of all programs to assure fair compensation
for writers and others. Thanks to TeleRead, nations can offer
whole libraries to each other--and at the same time respect the
rights of individual creators.

    Via TeleRead, we create new markets for American books while
sharing technical expertise with the Third World. We adjust
charges with the wealth of the country in mind. By treating
developing countries well, the U.S. encourages greater
enforcement of anti-piracy laws and promotes future business for
our publishers and authors
    At the same time, foreign countries can develop their own
electronic library systems--well-stocked with indigenou
literature. The TeleRead approach encourages cultural diversity.
Perhaps someday one TeleRead system will serve entire planet, but
not until more countries grant freedom of the press.

Corporations

    Years ago, when TeleRead was proposed, some corporations saw
the plan as a budget-buster from Satan. Instead, however, it
consumes just a tiny fraction of our Gross Domestic Product an
has added vastly to our national wealth. The smarter CEO
realized that the best way to protect capitalism was to be more
flexible than the communists of Eastern Europe were. Now
employers of all sizes can benefit from computer-savvy workers
who need not be supervised constantly. This skilled workforc
makes us a more competitive nation.

    Other countries can tap into databases, ours or their own,
but in no other land is high-tech so integral a part of the
educational system. Even the poorest American children can grow
up with TeleReaders. We were among the few countries that could
make a computer available to each child, one way or another; and
we took advantage of this.

    (For an example of what a well-educated workforce can
accomplish with high tech, read The Virtual Corporation
Structuring and Revitalizing the Corporation for the 21st
Century, written by William H. Davidow and Michael S. Malone an
published last year by HarperCollins.)

    What's more, TeleRead is a boon to corporate R&D departments.
TRnet's powerful search capabilities enable researchers to keep
up more easily with work in their fields. Small journals can
publish more inexpensively and have more money left over to pay
contributors. Too, these periodicals cost much less to receiv
via TRnet than they did in the heyday of paper. In fact,
researchers can dial up past articles and issues for free (TRne
pays that expense). TeleRead has dramatically accelerated the
pace of medical research, not just work on better alarm clocks or
jogging shoes. It's saving thousands of lives each year.

    Corporate marketers as a group have also come out ahead. With
so much information online for free, they can more easily
anticipate national and international consumer trends--by
searching databases for patterns. Good companies enjoy more
business since consumers can dial up detailed reviews of specific
cars, woks, or washing machines. Badly run corporations are
failing faster as word spreads of inferior products or financial
or environmental scandals. Stockholders can dial into TRnet for
past articles on companies, large and small; markets are more
efficient at rewarding winners and punishing losers.

    Businesses also benefit from the electronic forms that the
government uses to reduce the time that Americans on federal,
state, and local paperwork. The savings add up to tens of
billions of dollars. Accounting and other administrativ
departments within corporations are smaller. After all, i
streaming paperwork for the government, corporations discovere
they could reduce their internal paperwork as well.

Religion

    TRnet is a dream come true for the Gideon Society and
equivalents. The Old and New Testaments, the Talmud, the Book of
Mormon, the Koran, and other major religious works are online.
Christian fundamentalists once worried about dial-up pornography,
but now rejoice that the new generation of young people is more
contemplative, less hedonistic, as books regain much of the
influence they lost to television.

    With so many books and educational software on TRnet, it is
easier for conservatives of all faiths to home-school thei
children or start private schools without draining resources fro
the public education.

Volunteer
    Retired managers and executives use TRnet to tutor students
and consult with small business people from afar. An Electronic
Peace Corps lets Americans share technical and medical expertise
with people aboad (see my proposal in the Washington Post of Feb.
5, 1984, Page D5). Thanks to the EPC, we can now learn of any
AIDSlike epidemic long before it threatens the United States (see
International Health News, November 1987, Page 4).

Anybody Displaced by TeleRead and TRnet

    No worker got a pink slip without plenty of warning; everyone
knew TeleRead was coming. With so many educational resources
online, career-switching is much easier. Although employers have
eliminated useless mid-management jobs, many ex-managers hav
re-established themselves as consultants.
Washington Think-Tanker
    A few hacks at Washington think-tanks--not the true stars,
but rather the plodders who turned corporate or government
propaganda into academic research--are among the displaced. TRnet
for them is a nightmare come true. Grubby high school students,
Idaho professors, and small business people in Florida can now
dial up the same arcane information as our national elite can.

    Fresh Insights are more of a commodity. The outsiders stil
can't go to Washington cocktail parties and hear the latest
gossip. But the more diligent among them can dial up a number of
databases in search of trends invisible to the duller of the D.C.
think-tankers.

Everyone

    TeleRead offers a "symbiotic cyberspace library (SCL)" wit
"individual bits of knowledge entered by all kinds of people," a
concept originated by computer systems manager Billy Barron at
the University of Texas at Dallas. "These bits" can be "accounts
of an event, recipes, little 'how to' tips, ideas for ne
inventions, opinions on political and other issues...anything."
Certainly TeleRead's SCL should enhance its usefulness to future
historians.

    (For details, see the "Symbotic Cyberspace Libraries" essay
in Thinking Robots, An Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians:
the 1992 LITA President's Program, Chicago: Library and
Information Technology Associates, 1992).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
    We now return you to 1993 and a more immediate prediction.
Somewhere a dutiful think-tanker will boot up his word-processo
and write, "Fascinating idea; but of course it will take decades
to resolve the copyright issues, and we'll all go broke and end
up slaves of the Japanese if we even dream of spending half
percent of our Gross Domestic Product on TeleRead." -D.H.R.


            STAMPING OUT CURIOSITY: THE TROUBLE
        WITH "PAY-PER-READ" AND "KNOWLEDGE STAMPS"

    Via computer, you've just dialed up Shakespeare, a biology
text or maybe a manual telling you how to fix a diesel engine.
You log on the network for the next series of books. And then a
rude message flashes across your screen: "User hereby agrees to
transfer $20 for the designated material. Type Y or N."

    Get used to such hassles if we go in the direction of
pay-per-read. One of the worst proposals comes from 
Washington consultant who has suggested that Americans receive
"Micro-vouchers" to pay for courses and instructional materia
and tools. Couldn't these knowledge stamps help replace
"government-run and -controlled institutions" with "free
enterprise"?

    Excuse me. What about the Stalinist institutions known as
public libraries? When thousands of books go online and many are
not even available on paper, a national public library should
store copies of everything for ordinary Americans to dial up
    Otherwise, we may have to dart back and forth between, say, a
Time Warner computer network and a McGraw-Hill equivalent to
retrieve all books on topic X.

    Even more important, our government should not limit our free
reading to stamp-style allotments (why have stamps if allotments
or pay-per-read schemes won't prevail?). A traditional public
library encourages curiosity and browsing. We must not let the
pay-per-read zealots discourage them.
    If pay-per-read fanatics wins out, future Michael Dirdas will
suffer. Dirda, a Washington Post editor from the Ohio steel tow
of Lorain, has written how his clever working-class father use
reverse psychology to cultivate a love of books. Now, what if
pay-per-read prevails in the 21st century? Then, knowledge stamps
or not, a future version of Dirda's father might truly mean it
when he discouraged reading:

    Mr. Dirda (looking at a record of young Michael's account):
"Why are you wasting your stamps? If I've told you once, I've
told you a thousand times--no more novels this month."

    Michael: "Not even Tolstoy? Not even Faulkner?"

    Mr. Dirda: "I thought you were practical."

    Michael: "Tom Mikus reads all the novels he wants. Bellow,
you name it."

    Mr. Dirda: "Look, Mike, you've got only so many stamps. If we
could afford all those books on our own--believe me, we'd get
them.
    Michael: "Just because his old man's a lawyer--"

    Mr. Dirda: "You've still got $300 in credit this year. Why
not take accounting?"
    Michael: "But I want to go to Oberlin. I want to save my
stamps for the classy stuff.
    Mr. Dirda: "Forget it, Mike. That's for people like Tom.
    I'm assuming, of course, that the future Michael could
befriend the future Tom in a public school attended by children
of diverse backgrounds. By draining away resources, knowledge
stamps might kill off many public schools where social classe
mixed.

=================================================================

             WHAT IF THEY BRING UP WOZ'S GARAGE?
                 TEN MYTHS--AND RESPONSES

    Say "TeleRead" to a certain species of "information
management" guru, and it will be like touting Fords to a
buggywhip maker.

    After Computerworld printed an early version of my TeleRead
proposal in July 1992, it received an angry letter from a Chicago
consultant who was "appalled." He hated the idea of the
government spending money on "universal access to on-line
information." Presumably we should limit the full benefits o
high-tech to the information priests in those white-tiled rooms
    I won't blame some elite consultants and others for loathing
the idea. While many would adapt to TeleRead--and actually com
out ahead--others would find that it took away their raison
d'etre. Many prospective clients could dial-up information for
themselves.

    With people like the Chicago consultant in mind, I'll list
ten myths and rebuttals:
    * Myth #1: Apple started in Steve Wozniak's garage, or
something close to it; so why do we need a new government program
like TeleRead? What a waste.

    Reply: By the time Apple came along, the government had
poured billions into military and space technology. Would
integrated chips and other key components have been invented
without years of investment in more primitive forms of
electronics? Consider, too, the shot in the arm that the laptop
industry received when the Internal Revenue Service and other
federal agencies started buying portable computers.

    Such benefits, however, are small compared to those that
TeleRead could bring over time. Without being too xenophobic--not
the smartest mindset in an industry as international as
high-tech--TeleRead would *try* to favor vendors with
American-made screens and other key components.

    The biggest need for TeleRead, of course, has nothing to do
with the immediate welfare of region such as Silicon Valley and
the Route 128 corridor in Massachusetts. It has to do with the
decline of reading in the United States. The Department of
Education recently found that at least 90 million Americans are
problem readers. As the November 1993 issue of Harper's notes,
"fewer than 20 percent of those surveyed could compare two
metaphors in a poem; not four percent could calculate the cost of
carpeting at a given price for a room of a given size, using a
calculator." Millions of students are growing up in bookless
homes and going to schools that lack money for books or squander
the funds
    Some of the worst examples are in Washington, D.C. School
there spend more than half a billion a year, of which a mere $2
million goes for books. Teachers are tired of using their own
money to buy extra books and other supplies for students.

    Courtland Milloy, a Washington Post columnist, recently
wrote: "In the absence of up-to-date textbooks, many teachers sa
they must rely heavily on current publications, routinely
spending more than $100 a year just on duplicating news
articles."

    Anyone still question the need for TeleRead?

    * Myth #2: Wouldn't TeleRead stifle competition among
publishers and writers? What's this about de-escalating
royalties
    Reply: But what's so competitive about our present system? G
to the computer-book stands at your local chain stores, for
example, and you'll very likely see the same colophons again an
again. That's a hint of what the rest of the book world may face.

    At least one famous publisher tells agents that it no longer
wants mid-list books, only potential best-sellers or specialized
professional books.

    Marketers at *some* big publishing houses don't exactly dream
of publishing Nobel Prize winners and printing scores of good
first novels. Their secret fantasy is a little more MBAish. They
would like to print just one book a year--anything, good or
bad--and sell 20 million copies.

    Forget about the explosion in the number of small publishers.
Desktop publishing technology makes it easier to set type and la
out books, but what's the use if you normally can't get the big
chains to display your wares as well as those from major houses?
Most small publishers survive by sticking to niches and paying
meager royalties to writers, who, with less at stake, often turn
out sloppy, badly researched work.

    Nor does the present system truly promote competition among
writers. In a country of a quarter of a billion people, fewer
than 10,000-20,000 freelancers are writing books full time and
giving the trade their best efforts. Going full time is normally
out of the question unless you're rich, hyperfrugal, or have a
working spouse. Write a $20 paperback, and you may receive all o
$1.40 for every copy sold.

    Sociologist Paul Kingston once calculated that writers could
earn more per hour by flipping hamburgers at Wendy's than they
could make at the typewriter. He co-authored a book with a rather
apropos title: The Wages of Writing: Per Word, Per Piece, or
Perhaps (Coumbia University Press, 1986). No meaningful
government figures exist on the average incomes of professional
book and magazine writers who freelance full-time; but you can
bet that you wouldn't want your daughter to marry one
    Meanwhile, publishers keep bidding up the prices of a lucky
few writers without truly encouraging them to write better o
even in a more popular style. Judith Krantz will never turn out
Pride and Prejudice--or even a more popular Hollywood saga--just
because the industry pays her $3 million rather than $2 million.
The industry would be far more competitive without such high
blockbuster advances and without a tendency to promote just a few
writers at the expense of many.

    And that's where the concept of de-escalating royalties would
come in. It could revive the midlist book in America.

    Right now, printers give discounts for large
printings--favoring best-sellers, in effect, and harming man
technical and educational books, along with literary novels. And
even with computerized inventory systems, big chains would rather
play up certified best-sellers than mid-list books. Most chain
stores are in malls. Booksellers must pay the same rent on the
space a book takes up, whether it sells one or 1,000 copies a
month.

    TRnet, however, would be different. It wouldn't cost that
much more per dial- up to distribute a first novel rather than a
Krantz book. Moreover, as suggested in the main TeleRea
proposal, TRnet should be entitled to a steep discount as a mas
buyer.

    In the end, then, by way of de-escalating royalties, the new
book-distribution system would be skewed in favor of competitio
and diversity.
    What's more, under TeleRead, best-selling authors could still
accumulate great wealth. De-escalation could affect only the
biggest blockbusters, and even those writers would still come out
ahead since more money would be available for less lucrative
books that they *wanted* to write.

    * Myth #3: The government has no business funding writers and
publishers. What about the risk of censorship? Do we really want
the feds telling us how to spend money on books?

    Reply: Marketers already are censoring new ideas more
relentlessly than any government bureaucrats could.

    Write a book about a social or political problem, and watch
the typical publisher run in the other direction if you aren't
good talk-- - show fodder. Ideally, of course, you'll have your
own show and a large audience that shares your prejudices. Rush
Limbaugh is the publishing world's gift to itself.
    Pesky new idea lose out under this system. The wonderful
witticism from the late A.J. Liebling, the media critic, has held
up well; freedom of the press is for those who own one.
    TeleRead, on the other hand, would be a boon to new
publications and to small publishers of books, newsletters and
magazines with original ideas. I think of people like Roldo
Bartimole, a former Wall Street Journal reporter. For decades he
has been taking on the Cleveland establishment. Read his Point of
View newsletter and you will understand why new skyscrapers rose
in Cleveland while neighborhoods crumbled.

    PoV is a delight for citizen activists, many small business
people, journalists, librarians, academics, and others. In fact,
some of its most constant readers are its targets. They keep up
with Bartimole's little sheet for the same reason many financiers
read the front page of The Wall Street Journal; his exposes
enrage them at times, but uncover fresh facts that they could
never find elsewhere.

    The problem is, many big law firms and others are not buying
PoV so much as they are photocopying it.

    Under TeleRead, Bartimole-style mavericks could reach larger
audiences without worrying about the costs of postage an
printing, or the hassles of collecting subscription money. Yes,
some copying would take place. But the mavericks would still
benefit from the wider exposure. And like publishers of
newspapers and magazines, many Bartimole-style people could b
eligible for inclusion in databases of back issues, meaning yet
more income (newsletter publishers could charge the public fo
back issues if TRnet did not pay for them).

    At the same time, big dailies would come out ahead, too,
since they could distribute electronic editions without relying
on the goodwill of the local telephone and cable monopolies.

    But what about the risk of Washington politicians censoring
material? That is exactly why TeleRead might be an independent
agency or a well-insulated part of the Library of Congress;
receive long-range funding; have many librarians involved in the
selection of books and other material; rely heavily on input from
state and local levels rather than being a top-down organization;
offer explicit procedures for writers and publishers to bypass
the librarians; and allow private publishers to run their ow
networks and sell books and magazines independently through
subscription programs of their own.
    TeleRead would not even have to be in Washington near the
normal policymakers and lobbyists. Spread out the functions. Let
a Silicon Valley office do much of procurement of portable
computers. Have Boston help handle contracts for the memory-bank
facilities, in many different areas of the country. Let the
librarians--most of whom would work for local, state, and
university libraries rather than for TeleRead itself--live
anywhere.

    In short, make TeleRead a decentralized, virtual organizatio
without a Washington headquarters around which the usua
lobbyists could hang out. Astute politicians should welcome this
approach. It would provide less opportunity for book-burning
group to hassle them over TeleRead.

    A decentralized TeleRead might lease TRnet computer
facilities in several regions and cut down on communications
costs. Granted, each facility would store the same books (so that
comprehensive searches for information would be easier and
faster). But many librarians, in different locations, would be
able to certify titles for dial-- up fees. With so many people
recommending books--not excluding them-- --TeleRead would be a
censor's nightmare.

    These TeleLibrarians, although federally funded, would be
working within their own budgets, just like doctors at HMO's.
Consider a librarian in Bismarck, North Dakota, who was employe
by the local library system there; he or she would use the
central database to monitor all new books submitted for possibl
certification--no matter where the authors or publishers were
located. Thanks to the powerful search capabilities of computers,
our North Dakotan could flag the system to look regularly for
books of interest to her.

    No book on the Great Plains or on the Dakota history would
escape her attention, nor would any biography of her favorite
composer or artist. The central database would tell her which
books already received enjoyed certification. Armed with all
these facts, she could intelligently approve a certain number of
books every two months or so--whatever her budget allowed. The
money would come from the federal government, but this local
TeleLibrarian would be watching out for the interest of he
fellow Dakotans. Not every librarian would be making choices, but
those who did would consult closely with peers and perhaps even
consult committees within their library systems.

    Statisticians would help TRnet monitor the dial-ups patterns
and constantly adjust the allowances for purchases of certain
kinds of books and other than the Dewey Decimal system. Clearly,
then, ways would exist for TRnet to avoid cost overruns,
especially if royalties on best-sellers were de-escalating.

    With clear selection and budgeting procedures in place, TRne
in some respects would be like the Internet, the giant network of
networks that is available to thousand of researchers, academics,
business people and others in the United States and throughout
the rest of the world. The U.S. government made the Internet
possible, but the network has taken on a life of its own. It now
carries thousands of message areas on topics ranging from ozone
to "Practical Christianity."
    In fact, the Internet offers much more freedom than people
find on some private networks. In 1992, while researching a
computer book, my wife and I asked Prodigy members what the
thought of the service's Food and Wine Club. Our neutrally worded
notice vanished within hours. The book was many months from
publication and we did not even mention a title, yet Prodigy
claimed we were using the network for commercial purposes.
Prodigy has added some wonderful new wrinkles, such as
9,600-b.p.s. services, and I very much hope that this innovative
network will survive and thrive--but with more freedom of
expression. Carly and I were hardly the first victims of th
Prodigy censors. A New York Times gardening columnist had a brush
with them several years ago and wrote about it in his paper.

    Should you still see TeleRead as more Big Brotherish than
"Free Enterprise" is, then you might consider the following
scenario:

    Let's say the government gave your local newspaper what some
have called "a license to print money." As a believer in
separation of state and press, would you approve of this
practice? Would you consider it to be unfair federal
intervention? Then you are a little too late. Television license
already exist--for newspaper companies and other businesses--and
the Federal Communications Communication can take them away if
the FCC believes that TV stations are not acting in the public
interest. Beyond that, Washington has granted anti-- trust
dispensations to many a newspaper.

    What's more, even opinion magazines must plead their case
with the Postal Service if they want to enjoy special mailing
rates. And publications of all kinds of all kinds must satisfy
the Internal Revenue
    So true separation between government and the media is 
dream. If it were reality, copyrights would not be with us. Jesse
Helms notwithstanding, federal copyright law makes it possible
for Hustler to turn a profit--by assuring Larry Flynt that i
someone pirates his girlie photos, then Flynt can sue. Copyrights
are just a start. For copyrights to do any good when contexted,
government officials must at least recognize them.

    The real way to promote freedom of speech, then, is not to
deny the inevitable governmental role in what we read, watch, and
hear. Rather it's to come up with a system of checks and balance
to guard against censorship by bureaucrats--or marketers.

    * Myth #4: But if you don't have censorship, you won't be
able to control what books children read.

    Reply: The best way for parents to protect their children is
to set good examples and spend enough time with their offspring.
Certainly few books are as likely to promote negative behavior as
the barrage of graphic material on commercial television.
    But, yes, for parents wanting a technological solution,
TeleReader could prevent children from dialing up objectionable
material. Parents and children could use different log-on
procedures, just as they can right now on some commercial
computer networks.

    * Myth #5: A good $50 or $100 portable computer? You've got
to be kidding.

    Reply: What sells for $1,000 today is likely to sell for a
tenth o the price within the next two decades. Consider how much
the early televisions and calculators cost. Even without a
government program, you can pay $100 for a used PC that would
have sold in the mid-80s for several thousand dollars.

    Engineers are squeezing more power into less space, and
driving down costs in the bargain. Twenty years ago, it's been
noted, we could not cram more than 5,000 transistors into an
integrated circuit. Now the upper limit is well into the
millions, and will keep multiplying. Meanwhile, computer memorie
are growing. An entire chip someday might house the entire
contents of the Library of Congress.
    What's more, portable computer screens are sharper than ever.
Already the Knight-Ridder chain has been studying the use of
tablet-- style portables for reading newspapers. The technology
may be ready in the next two years or so. Some newspapers,
however, such as dailies in San Jose and a few other cities,
already publish electronic editions-- even without the
availability of special portable computers like Knight-Ridder's,
or the proposed TeleReaders. But these editions are more or les
experimental. The technology is not quite ready for wading
through a newspaper, much less a whole book
    Still, we are not that many years from the time when fla
screens actually could be *easier* to read than paper. The
screens could be sharp and flickerless, and you would be able to
vary the color, type size, and type style. Besides, the first
material on TRnet could be of the "must read" variety--for
example, medical and technical material--so that the readabilit
of the screen mattered less than for recreational use.

    What about battery life? High-tech companies are steadily
increasing the time between recharges. The batteries pack mor
energy and the circuitry draws less power. This is one area with
plenty of room for progress, but hardly hopeless. Some portable
computers without good screens can last dozens of hours on
penlight cells. Besides, what's so tragic if the very first
TeleReaders rely more extensively on AC power than future model
do?

    So in the end, the issue isn't technology. It's money. Ge
publishers to digitize books, create enough of a market for
TeleReaders, and Silicon Valley will oblige. No, a powerful $10
portable won't be here immediately. But it will appear in th
future--if Silicon Valley works on driving the costs down, not
just on pushing the limits of technology.

    * Myth #6: Wouldn't the kids steal or destroy the equipment?
    Reply: But who says every child must get a TeleReader
immediately?

    Schools could loan the first machines to the children with
the best prospects--the bright and the hardworking; reward them.
Drug- peddlers flaunt beepers. Now let's get some high-tech into
the hands of honest, well-motivated students who otherwise could
never afford powerful computers (some might be honors students;
others, students who showed potential in other ways)
    Also, etch serial numbers into the cases. Compile a register
of legitimate users of government-supplied machines, and make it
illegal to sell unregistered TeleReaders. Impose stiff penalties
on offenders.

    Reduce damage to equipment by starting the program in th
high schools and working down. Also, insist that durability be
one of the criteria for awarding TeleReader contracts. Sooner or
later we'd reach the point where first-graders could blithely
play catch with their TeleReaders or drop them on the sidewalk
    Yet another way to fight theft and breakage would be to
involve parents in the TeleRead program from the start. The
machines could improve their own literacy skills and make them
more employable. Special video games--with audio and flashy,
Sesame Street-style graphics-- --might even be designed to help
parents and children work together to build up their skills.

    * Myth #7: Isn't it un-American to tax other people to
support readers?

    Reply: But don't we tax single people and childless couples
to support the public schools? And isn't it in society's interest
to encourage reading
    Even putting best-sellers online--everything from mystery
novels to Judith Krantz's work--would contribute to general
enlightenment. People do not maintain and sharpen their readin
skills by just reading what they must. They also do this by
reading what they want. That's especially true of children;
literacy specialists are among the biggest boosters of comic
books
    * Myth #8: But don't some TeleRead-style projects exist now
How about competing activities such as Co-NECT Schools? What
about groups such as the New American Schools Development
Corporation, which is promoting into some of the same
technologies?

    Reply: These programs are a fraction of the size tha
TeleRead would eventually be. Besides, the more the technology i
tested beforehand, the faster we can get TeleRead off the ground.
TeleRead's TRnet would be a wonderful way to distribute
already-developed educational materials to children--and adults.
And educators already working in this area could help set up
programs to accustom American teachers to high-tech.

    The point to remember here is that no private effort could
ever offer as many books and as much educational software as
TeleRead could, and do this at affordable prices for all.

    Nor could any other program stimulate technological
development as much, by offering so massive a market for
reading-computers.

    I have not heard of any private projects using machines as
viewable and affordable as the proposed TeleReaders, but if those
ventures can perfect such machines, that will help. It would
especially be good if educators in existing endeavors, compute
companies, newspaper people, book publishers, writers, and others
worked with the government to come up with goals and standards
for TeleReaders and the TeleRead program in general (obviously
public interest groups should participate too).

    * Myth #9: But don't we have the Internet already as a
low-cost way to spread knowledge? Who needs something else?

    Reply: The Internet's offering are scanty compared to a major
public library's. No surprise here. Few commercial books are on
the 'Net.

    Besides, TRnet wouldn't replace the Internet as an electronic
forum for researchers and the university community at large
let's not destroy something that has served the United States so
well. The solution is to have books distributed through
TRnet--while letting many users pop back and forth between th
two networks. TRnet and the Internet could work in tandem. In
fact, TeleRead might fund both (or at least participate in the
Internet's funding).

    * Myth #10: Still, what about bills already introduced in
Congress? Aren't people already planning electronic libraries for
the public?
    Reply: TeleRead would guarantee that a broader range of
materials would be available online for free or at low cost. And
of course TeleRead would also drive down the prices of powerful
reading-computers, so that virtually all interested Americans
would benefit.



                THE ORIGINS OF TELEREAD
    Several years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr., complained that
many students were using computers rather than card catalogues at
the library. He had a point. Library skills were declining.
Skimming a few facts off databases wasn't like reading whole
books. I thought, "Why couldn't the complete texts be online?"

    The idea of dial-up books was already many years old. But t
my knowledge, no one had truly resolved the big issue: Just how
could we make online books affordable--yet also provide for fair
compensation for writers and publishers? Without such a plan, we
might well reach the point someday where most public librarie
folded. Suppose only the rich could afford to be well read. I
wondered if our library system would start failing the average
American as badly as our health care system had. Middle-class
people were reading books, but some of the fastest-growing
demographical groups were not. What's more, I feared that future
technology might increase the gap between the middle-class and
the rich.

    My worries have been all too justified. Within the past year
or two, local libraries have cut back hours; this happened to me
in Fairfax County, Va., not Harlan County, Kentucky. I have just
moved to the nearby city of Alexandria, where, if anything, the
libraries for years have been worse than in Fairfax. (If I
couldn't buy Fairfax County library card, I would not have
moved.) Even the Library of Congress has scaled back the schedule
of its reading rooms. On top of that, more and more students ar
shunning careers with cash-strapped public libraries, preferring
to collect lawyerish money working for big corporations. Who can
blame them?

    Something else is happening, too: Publishers and stores are
even more cavalier toward non-best-sellers than in past years. M
books keep coming out late for business reasons, costing me
thousands of dollars in sales because high tech is always
changing. A XyWrite III guide appeared just time to greet the
arrival of XyWrite III Plus. Typically publishers are too busy
promoting books by celebrities or hawking the 10 zillionth
WordPerfect guide. When a writer for major computer magazines
wanted to review The Complete Laptop Computer Guide, he could not
find a copy on sale in all of Salt Lake City.

    Another problem right now is the high price of books. Why is
it that schoolchildren must pay $8 for little paperback editions
of classics? Or that more and more college textbooks cost $50 o
$75? Or that many students must resort to used, outdated
textbooks because the new ones are so expensive? Or that some
novels list for $30? Just how can publishers lobby for more aid
to libraries when the prices of books keep zooming? And yet we
cannot blame publishers alone, not when production costs have
risen.

    I conceived TeleRead, then, as a good solution for readers,
writers, and publishers alike--and even for bookstores, too, if
they were willing to adapt to the new technology. As I've noted
elsewhere, bookstores themselves might print books downloaded
from the network. They might even become publishers themselves.

    Refining this proposal, I found that the Association of
American Publishers was helpful with facts on the economics of
the trade. I hope that AAP will be open-minded. Certainly
TeleRead addresses a problem of major concern to publishers--the
vulnerability of digitized books to bootlegging. It would
*increase* the incomes of good publishers. Perhaps readers,
writers and publishers can put aside their differences and work
together to hasten the coming of TeleRead.--D.H.R
==============================================================
                    ACTING ON THE IDEA

    If you like the TeleRead idea, spread this file around and
write the White House or the appropriate people on the Hill. Many
officials in Washington would rather not have their fax or e-mail
boxes tied up. So please use paper mail. Feel free to reproduce
this file on paper to accompany letters.
    I'm a writer, struggling with the usual deadlines, and I hav
just so much time to lobby for this idea. I hope that others ca
follow up.

    Below are possible people to contact. This list isn't
all-inclusive; some of the best prospects may not be mentioned
here. Do not worry about writing to all the names below, just to
whoever you feel would be responsive.

    Executive Branch (In Alphabetical Order)

    * Pam Barnett, Executive Assistant for Domestic Policy
Office of the First Lady, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500. We all know of Hillary Clinton's
interest in educational matters.

    * Ronald Brown, Secretary of Commerce, Washington, D.C. The
Commerce Department is playing a major role in the Clinton
Administraton's plans for a National Information
Infrastructure--especially in regard to the protection of
intellectual property. Mr. Brown chairs the Information
Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), with high-ranking members from
different federal agencies. See the listing below for Terri
Southwick, a Patent Office attorney who has been soliciting
NII-related comments from the interested
    * President Bill Clinton, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania
Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C 20500. Contacting President Clinto
and Vice President Gore, have made the point at a national data
highway is just a start. What really counts is what will be
online, and whether the average household will be able to afford
it.

    * Jeff Eller, Media Affairs, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania,
Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500.

    * Dr. John H. Gibbons, White House Director of Science and
Technology, Old Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.
20500.

    * Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500.

    * Ira Magaziner, Senior Advisor for Policy Development,
Domestic Policy Council, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington
D.C. 20500
    * Roy Neel, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Old
Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20503
    * Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave.,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210. Secretary Reich, of course, has
long pointed out the connection between educational opportunities
and national prosperity. In commenting on the TeleRead proposal
in a letter dated April 14, Assistant Labor Secretary Thomas C.
Komarek noted that "one of the primary goals of DOL's Workforce
2000 initiative is to increase the compute literacy of the
American workforce.
    * Richard Riley, Secretary of Education, 400 Maryland Ave.,
S.W., Washington, D.C. 20202-0100. Education has sent me a letter
requesting more information on TeleRead, and when deadlines
permit, I'll be following up.

    * Greg Simon, Advisor to the Vice President for Domestic
Policy, Old Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20503.

    * Terri A. Southwick, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Legislation
and International Affairs, c/o Commissioner of Patents and
Trademarks, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Box 4, Washington
D.C. 20231. She helped organize hearings on behalf of the
Working Group on Intellectual Property of the Information Policy
Committe of the Clinton Administration's National Information
Infrastructure Task Force.

    * George Stephanopoulos, Senior Advisor White House, 1600
Pennsyvania, Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500. Mr.
Stephanopoulos has resigned as White House communications
director, but President Clinton says he will "be working with me
more closely...on important matters of policy and strategy and
day-to-day decision making, helping me to integrate all the
complicated debates that confront my office." Ranging over a
number of areas, TeleRead just might be of interest to Mr.
Stephanopoulos
    * Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Council of Economic Advisers, Old
Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20503
    * Margaret Williams, Chief of Staff to the First Lady, White
House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500.

    The Senate (Alphabetically):

    * The Honorable Max Baucus, U.S. Senate, 706 Hart Senate
Building, Washington, D.C. 20510-2602. Sen. Baucus has shown an
interest high-tech. His state, Montana, could benefit
dramatically from a national electronic library and improved
telecommunications.

    * The Honorable Robert Byrd, 311 Hart Senate Building, U.S.
Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510-4801. Sen. Byrd chairs the
Appropriations Committee, and, like Sen. Baucus, comes from a
rural state where most citizens lack easy access to large
libraries. West Virginians might appreciate TeleRead'
de-centralized nature. In this era of computer networks and
faxes, why should the Washington area drown in federal offices
while people in other states are begging for good white-collar
jobs?

    * The Honorable Byron Dorgan, 825 Hart Senate Building, U.S.
Senate Washington, D.C. 20510-3405. A North Dakotan, he sits on
the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. And like
Senators Byrd and Baucus, Sen. Dorgan is interested in ways to
use high-tech to increase educational opportunities for rura
people.
    * The Honorable Edward Kennedy, 315 Russell Senate Building
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510-2101. Chair of Labor and
Human Resources, the Senator has been interested for many years
in long-- distance learning.

    * The Honorable J. Bob Kerrey, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.
20510. Last October he gave a speech to the Software Publishers
Association calling for online networks for education. Sen.
Kerrey is from Nebraska, one of the many rural state that could
benefit from affordable online libraries.
    * The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senate, 464
Russell Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510-3201. Himself a
author (well known for sociology), he represents New York
state--which of course is to books what Florida is to oranges.


    The House (Alphabetically):

    * The Honorable Rick Boucher, 405 Cannon House Office
Building, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515.
He is on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, and he has
just introduced legislation to hasten the day when thousands o
books would be online. His bill also provides for hardware
purchases for schools and libraries. This is helpful. But now we
need affordable computers for virtually all American homes--and
assurances that databases will charge little or nothing for the
same material that paper libraries offer for free. Let's mak
knowledge truly affordable to all
    * The Honorable Edward J. Markey, U.S. House o
Representatives, 2133 Rayburn, Washington, D.C. 20515-2107. Rep.
Markey sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the
Telecommunications and Finance subcommittee. As befits anyone
from Massachusetts, he is intensely interested in high-tech
issues such as national data highways.
    * The Honorable Major Owens, U.S. House of Representatives,
2305 Rayburn, Washington, D.C. 20515-3211. Rep. Owens, the only
professonal librarian in Congress, is on the Education and Labor
Committee and is from Brooklyn.

    * The Honorable Charlie Rose, U.S. House of Representatives,
2230 Rayburn, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
20515-- - 3307. The chairman of the House Administration
Committee, Rep. Rose jokes that he is the "techno-nut" of the
Hill. His state, North Carolina, has a number of high-tech firms
in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.



                        REACHING ME

    You may contact me through the following networks:

    * America Online (DavidHR).

    * CompuServe (73577,3271).

    * GEnie (D.Rothman1).

    * Internet (rothman@netcom.com, DavidHR@aol.com,
73577.3271@compuserve.com or 106-5024@MCIMail.com).

    * MCI Mail (David H Rothman at the "To:" command
    * Prodigy (TNFN63A). E-mail on this network can be cumbersome
to answer, so please use alternatives if possible.
================================================================
                      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

    An earlier version of this evolving proposal appeared in The
Washington Post Education Review (page 5, April 4, 1993, and
articles also have appeared in Computerworld (page 77, July 6,
1992) and the Baltimore Sun (page 4G, August 9, 1992). Opinions
expressed here are my own, not necessarily the Review's or any
other publication's. You may make as many electronic copies of
this expanded version as you want without permission--as long as
you do not alter the text. Please check with me about publication
on paper.

    (c) 1993, David H. Rothman.

=================================================================

                      ADDENDUM ONE:
               IS BRIDGEPORT THE FUTURE?
         (AND A FEW WORDS ON THE KNOWLEDG
                CRISIS IN OTHER CITIES)

    Bridgeport (pop. 143,000) is turning even bright children
into future cooks and janitors. A story in the April 6 Washington
Post tells of the decline of literacy in Connecticut's biggest
city: "The public school system is so strapped for cash that it
spends less than one-third of the state average on new books for
its libraries.

    "And the public library system, a beacon for literacy for 14
years, is open only about one-third as many hours as in the late
1980s.
    You can blame Bridgeport for short-sightedness, and you would
be right; but another reason exists, too--the disparity between
the library budgets of rich and poor cities. That is exactly what
TeleRead would help address
    Contrast Bridgeport with Westport and Fairfield, nearby towns
that boast thriving bookstores and libraries. The Post correctly
notes that middle-class Americans are buying and borrowing more
books than in past decades. That's good news in some respects (it
suggests that a full- service TeleRead program could enjoy a
sizable constituency). But white, middle-class America is not the
whole country.

    Some of the fastest-growing demographical groups are the
least likely to be readers; besides, women in all economic groups
lag far behind men in mastery of technical subjects. In an age
when white male workers will soon be a minority, we could all
lose. The yuppies in Westport will not fare well in their
retirement if we lack enough skilled workers to support them.

    "With the growing inequities in schools and the cuts in libraries
across the country, literacy is becoming increasingly
class-based," the Post quotes Patricia Shulman, former president
of the American Library Association.

    Furthermore, as shown by the library cuts in Fairfax County, Va.,
even the middle-class may not safe in the end. And this
information gap will only grow worse if electronic libraries are
not affordable and old-fashioned libraries go the way of the
streetcar.

In Baltimore...
    Bridgeport is hardly alone in its miserliness toward books.

    Once Baltimore politicians bragged about "The City That Reads."
Recently, however, Mayor Schmoke, a former Rhodes Scholar, talke
of shutting down neighborhood library branches. He asked citizens
to lobby the Maryland Legislature for more funds. And yet, as
columnist Michael Olesker wrote in the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore
is already receiving "about 40 per cent of its Pratt Library
money from the state."

    Strange, isn't it? Baltimore has money for convention
centers, professional sports facilities, and the rest; bu
somehow the Mayor regards books as frills
    Understandably, some 10,000 citizens have mailed in letter
to the librarians, who, according to Olesker, are displaying man
in the windows of the Central Library. He quotes one writer, a
student named Joseph: "The Pratt Library is the very backbone o
the public education system. I owe every A+ on every book report
and research paper I've done to the Pratt Library. Who can afford
an entire volume of Encyclopedia Britannica? The Pratt provides
to poor students for free what more privileged may have at their
fingertips at home. It gives poor students a chance at high
academic excellence."

    If TeleRead laws passed, even children in public housin
projects could dial up encyclopedias from their living rooms.

    Meanwhile, unwittingly, Mayor Schmoke has illustrated the
pitfalls of simplistic reliance on high-tech. He spoke as if we
were all enjoying online libraries right now, this very
nanosecond. Proposing to reduce the number of neighborhood
branches, Schmoke said: "With changes in technology, it may be
that this number of library branches is passe."

    That's claptrap, of course. Millions of children are growing
up illiterate while politicians, lawyers, lobbyists and Fortune
500 companies debate America's high-tech future. We need more
money for paper-era libraries now, along with explicit guarantees
that the electronic versions will serve Joseph.

    Ideally, some of the 10,000 people who wrote to protest the
Pratt cuts will also contat the federal government about
TeleRead. Why shouldn't Joseph be able to dial up the same books
as richer children in the suburbs?

(Thanks to Dr. James Farrell, a TeleRead supporter in the
Baltimore area, for sending me the Sun clip.)

In Los Angeles...

    A black computer consultant has just sent me a e-mail
note--in which he commented on the differences between textbooks
in white suburbia and minority areas.
    "It's funny how this has been an issue for so many years," he
says. "I remember that even when I was a child (I'm 26), my
father and I were always aware of the fact the books in
inner-city schools were much older and in poorer condition that
those in more affluent areas.

    "Of course busing was not the answers, because I was more
unhappy and alienated than ever before. What needs to be done is
to bring quality tools to the inner-city."

    That means common, full-service electronic libraries for the
rich and the poor.

    Otherwise the rich will care no more about online librarie
for the poor than they care about decent schools for them.

In Boston...

    William R. Murrell, the black owner of a high-tech firm
called MurrellBoston Telesis, agrees with the consultant that the
inner cities are underbooked. See the essay in the next addendum.
Mr. Murrell is spreading word of TeleRead on the black BBS
circuit. Clearly minorities can be just as keen on high tech a
the rest of us are. According to Mr. Murrell, an electronic
bulletin-board system oriented toward blacks has attracted 2,000
members. (A typical BBS in the U.S. has a fraction of that
number.) Still, without easy access to good computers, millions
of other blacks are unable to prepare for life in the silicon
age.

In Texas...

    Billy Barron recalls going to college in Denton, Texas, an
finding "a very small and poor public library. It wasn't open on
MWF nights and had limited weekend hours. I also discovered that
Denton had the best used bookstore that I have ever seen. Was
this because the population didn't have a good public library?
What about the poor families that couldn't afford even used
books?"

    If nothing else, why should millions of Americans have to buy
used books on fast-changing fields such as computer science? The
idea of finding an old, leather-bound copy of Great Expectations
is charming. What's not so charming, however, is to need
information on the latest computer technology and learn that th
newest books available are two years out of date. Ideally, used
bookstores will be around many more years. But ideally, too,
TeleRead will come along in time to help the citizens of Denton
prepare themselves for the era of the virtual corporation..

    Mr. Barron, Network Services Manager at the University o
Texas at Dallas and until recently Electronic Journal Archivist
at CICNet, has done his part to encourage the transition to
electronic media and make online books affordable to all. He
helped amass a collection of 500 electronic journals, access to
which is free to any Internet user. The collection is the CICNet
Electronic Journal Project and is distributed on the Internet by
CICNet, a regional network.

    If you are seeking free or low-cost electronic books and want
them now, then contact one of the leading pioneers in the field
Michael Hart, via the Internet (hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu). Or write
him at Project Gutenberg, Illinois Benedictine College, 5700
College Rd., Lisle, Illinois 60532-0900. Mr. Hart hopes to
assemble a collection of thousands of classics and other books
without copyrights in effect. Yet another book-related project i
the Online Books Initiative (obi@world.std.com), at Software Tool
and Die, 1330 Beacon St., Brookline, Massachusetts 02146. Why not
volunteer if you believe in any of these causes
    Even with TeleRead around to distribute books online,
activists such as Messrs. Barron and Hart would be valuable; they
could use TeleRead to spread the collections they have built up
over the years.

    There is, too, another compelling reason to support their
activities. "I am a big fiction reader myself," Mr. Barron says,
and I would hope that he and others would lean on TeleLibrarian
not to slight novels and other nontechnical material.

    My own concern is one reason why the TeleRead proposal allows
librarians to be bypassed if need be. Also, TeleRead should be as
easy to use as possible, so that it isn't just a tool of techies.
Build a good interface, and the lib arts types will come.

    A more immediate solution, of course, is for lovers of
literature-- good librarians included!--to help shape the online
books movement just as Messrs. Barron and Hart are doing now.

In North Carolina...

    Anthony Policastro of Wilmington has written Rep. Charlie
Rose to suggest that TeleRead would be one way to improve the
state's public schools. Politicians in North Carolina hav
themselvestalked about an "electronic highway" for the state.
TeleRead, of course, would allow people in all states to dial up
the same electronic books and share other resources.
    Until that happens, state might do well to follow a
suggestion from Mr. Policastro and set up demonstration
TeleReads. Perhaps state or local jurisdictions could strike
deals with publishers to authorize electronic reproduction of
books. He envisions charges for access to individual books. My
own preference is for flat fees; and, of course, the real
solution is a national program for all sections of th
country--rich and poor. Still, demonstration programs of any kind
at the state level would be most welcome.

In West Virginia..
    In Morgantown, West Virginia, long before he heard of
TeleRead, Al Judy and friends wanted affordable dial-up
libraries. He's bringing the TeleRead proposal to the attention
of other local business people. TeleRead could be a boon for
rural areas without good libraries; who says Bridgeport
Baltimore and Appalachia have different interests here?

In Alabama...

    Ron Albright, head of the Digital Publishing Association, ha
endorsed TeleRead as a way to promote his members' technology. He
also observes: "...Instead of flooding the young mind with yet
another sitcom or soap, TeleRead would allow video to present
them with quality reading materials. The table has been set to
allow the writers and publishers of the world to start using th
medium of video to stimulate the mind rather than allow it to
stagnate." Certainly, TeleRead could help raise the quality of
education in rural schools in Alabama just as it would in West
Virginia.

    For more information on the Digital Publishing Association,
reach Ron Albright at 1160 Huffman Road, Birmingham, Alabama, or
via e-mail (CompuServe: 75166,2473, GEnie: RALBRIGHT, or MCI
Mail: 370-7474 or Prodigy: DXBD80A).

==============================================================

         ADDENDUM TWO: AN AFRICAN AMERICAN REFLECTS
             ON TELEREAD AND AFFORDABLE BOOKS

Author's Note: Please pass around this essay and the rest of this
proposal. Ask your local newspapers to print or quote from th
material, and editorials about TeleRead. Tell your children to
contact their school newspaper editors. Spread the word among
friends, teachers, and PTA contacts. Encourage communit
businesses to get involved. Ask your minister to endorse
TeleRead. Don't forget about non-profit directors. This is a
person-to-person project! My computer addresses are at the ends
of my essay, in case you want to reach me. The TeleRead idea
means a lot to me as a parent and a Black person. In the past I
have taught technology to African Americans, and my wife teaches
third grade, and we're both of seeing children denied the books
they need. Here is a constructive solution.-W.R.M.

   By William R. Murrell

     Have you ever picked up a book and noticed the famous word
below?
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication ma
  be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
  transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical,
  photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
  the prior written permission of the publisher....

    I know there are business reasons for such restrictions, but I
can also imagine a world where knowledge can be free or at least
cost much less than it does now.
    Why should books be a "privilege"? Self-education is our right as
Americans.
    If we can read enough books, then we'll be able to repay
society by using our skills constructively. My mother always told
me, "The key to a self-sufficient life is to get a good
education." It's been said that genius is born everyday, and 
genius takes what he or she has and makes the best of it.

    How to help this process along? What about the masses of ou
African American youth, potential geniuses? Someday could they
use computers to dial up electronic books that were as easy to
read as paper ones? And could these computers and books be
extra-affordable, and even free to the some low-income people? Is
this possible? I know it is.

    Would this "TeleRead" program create more geniuses with
better solutions to the problems that affect us and society at
large? I know it would. And, since bookmaking is a business,
would not smaller African American publishers and writers be able
to share in the dream of a successful publishing business if they
could effortlessly reach the best markets for their products? I
know so
    Could not our high-tech entrepreneurs become more successful
at selling their services and systems? Could they not create
viable, profitable community-based businesses able to emplo
local folks? And could they not also help foster a new generation
of reading-computers affordable by every household? Again, I know
so.

    This TeleRead proposal should be taken seriously by anyone
who believes that technology should help all Americans, not just
the rich
    So before the "Information Highway" comes to your area, mak
sure that it will provide affordable electronic books for you and
your children.
    Black people and other Americans are fed up with the cost of
health-care, and now the politicians are getting the word. Let's
do the same for books. Let's work to make them affordable.

    Write the White House and your congressman now and tell them
about TeleRead. In particular you might want to write Greg Simon,
Assistant to the Vice President for Domestic Policy, Old
Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20503. Also write Dr.
John H. Gibbons, White House Director of Science and Technology,
Old Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20500. Dr.
Gibbons's office is now considering TeleRead.

William Murrell's e-mail addresses:

* CompuServe: 71521,2516

* Internet: Wmurrell@Delphi.com
* GENIE HOSB Advisor: W.Murrell1 U.S. Mail:

* MurrellBoston Telesis P.O. Box 190353 Boston, Ma. 0211
================================================================

              ADDENDUM THREE: TELEREAD--ONE PERSON'S VISION
                       ONE PERSON'S RESPONSE
                          By Jack E. Frisch
            Professor Emeritus, Communications and the Arts
                   University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

    I find it difficult to write in great specifics on the value of
TeleRead to the academic community because I've recently "left"
it. With retirement, I now only seldom have quite the need for
many of the very exciting and positive values of this proposal.
Just as with the fact that *for me* the incredible richnesses of
the Internet arrived rather too late for me to take full
advantage of them in my everyday work-world, so also with
TeleRead
     But also as with the Inet, I can dream, I can proselytize, I can
promote, I can cajole. I do it all the time. Too much needs to be
available, developed, expanded and *used* by the *entire
populace. That is what is so profound about the information
revolution we are experiencing in these decades: information free
and freely-exchanged. It has changed the world surprisingly
suddenly, and it must continue to do so. Indeed, it will continu
to do so regardless. BUT *control* is simply no longer the be-al
and end-all of successful societies, as some startling examples
of just the opposite have illustrated. So a question must remain,
*how* will future changes come about and whom will they most
affect
    I realize I am very fortunate to have an attachment to a
university and hence the availability of an account on its
mainframe that allows access to the Internet. However, precisely
because of that realization, I now more and more recognize a
likelihood that such a resource may well go the way of so many
things--available only (or even primarily) to a very restricted
elite. An elite I may or may not be considered a part of; but in
any event, the real concern must be with the many, many who are
not and will not be so considered
    Clinton and Gore are excited by the Inet "Superhighway" idea, but
they are being conned by various people (in congress, in
corporations, in the combinations) to drop it all in the infamous
laps of the money-changers. Which of course means payin
through the nose to even sneeze on-line.

    I really do think we need to find means to support this way of
"freedom of use" in the information society upon us. Or we are
going to lose it. As Stewart Brand liked to say (in the early
years of Whole Earth Catalog, at any rate), "information wants to
be free." But a lot of people differ with that concept, and the
statement "freedom of the press belongs to he that owns one" will
be the password online as well. Of course, once that happens, we
don't get such resources back. I well remember the course
readings and discussions during my own student days, as well as
my faculty days, about the mishmash and losses to the general
public which occurred because of early-- century decisions abou
licensing/awarding of those marvelously ephemeral,
available-to-everyone-as-a-natural-resource airwaves
    It wasn't only a long time ago: much of that same approach was
repeated with the advent of Cable television, with certai
results recently resurfacing
    David Rothman's TeleRead design to have virtually everything
available electronically and "free" is not of course free, and he
addresses that fact. It also critically depends upon the
development of a *very* readable screen as part of whatever th
system. He addresses that fact as well, which also indicates how
much this entire idea is somewhat futuristic. Yet, the incredibly
rapid technological advances with which we are all familiar
leaves quit open-ended the question of how distant or near the
future of that particular advance.

    He also of course addresses the questions of payment for the
authors of material which is going to be freely accessible. In
doing so, he does a convincing job of illustrating that authors
would receive even better payment (and treatment) than before.
Furthermore, it would *not* be the "pay-per-read" so outrageously
looked forward to by AT&T, Cable, et al. To say nothing of the
fact that books would not have to go out-of-print as readily -- 
particular personal complaint of mine during university
teaching/research days.

    In other words I think Rothman's proposal has much to do with
education in many of its possible manifestations. For myself now,
that particularly includes adult, distance, continuing,
special-circumstances education. It is his vision; it is my
response; I hope something can come of it, and the sooner th
better.

Jack E. Frisch, Professor Emeritus Communication and the Arts
(Theatre, American Indian Studies, Communication Processes)
University of Wisconsin- Green Ba
home: 568 Edgewood Drive
      Green Bay, WI 54302-4518
      (414)468-4225
      [FAX: 414-465-2718]
      E-mail: FRISCHJ@UWGB.ED
===============================================================

          ADDENDUM FOUR: TELEREAD AND THE INTERNE
    Should the Internet be used for distribution of electronic books
and educational material for the masses? How does it fit in wit
the proposed TRnet?

    A dilemma troubles the Internet community today. On one hand,
networks and BBS's should not imperil the protection of
intellectual property by spreading material around. On the other
hand, the Internet should serve the needs of the curious; i
should be a browser's friend, not just a marketer's tool.
    TRnet would end the dilemma. Users could swap messages and post
discussions and preliminary research findings on the Internet,
other networks and BBS's, and still enjoy at least as muc
protection as they do now. Then, later, when they reached final
conclusions and wanted full professional scrutiny, and, yes,
money, too, they could distribute their material via periodical
and books on TRnet. They would enjoy far wider exposure on TRnet
due to its centralized index, its elaborate hypertext
capabilities, and its easy interface.
    The Internet and TRnet might work together in another way; they
might share phone lines and computer facilities, thereby allowin
both to benefit from volume discounts. Much or most of TRnet
might even be the Internet in disguise, or vice versa. The
differences could often be invisible to the user. For example, if
you liked a book and wanted to contact an author who enjoyed mai
from readers, you could click your mouse on a "button" within an
electronic book and compose your message. Then next time you went
online, the message could go into the writer's mail box on the
Internet.

    Moving on to another example of integration, suppose that
Internet User A sent the complete text of someone else'
published book to a User B. Would this have to be piracy? Not at
all. Characters in the file might trigger a message to TRnet to
have the author compensated. If User A were on a BBS or other ne
unconnected to TRnet, then the compensation notice could arrive
when A next logged on TRnet.

    What's more, to use a third example, intelligent agents might
be designed to search both TRnet and the Internet simultaneously.
Since the Internet consists of many servers, searches could not
be done as quickly or as efficiently as searches restricted to
TRnet's centralized database. But they would be possible.

    Clearly the Internet would not be a substitute for TRnet, or the
opposite. Rather the two should work in tandem. If nothing else,
a TeleRead agency might eventually be a source of funds for
Internet software developers. Quite understandably the developers
of some software used on the network are tired of working withou
normal compensation. TeleRead funding would be one way to make
their programs available to all while allowing these innovators
to earn a living from their efforts.

================================================================

                  ADDENDUM FIVE: A GREEN IDEA--GOO
                        FOR THE ENVIRONMEN
    Not long ago, major computer makers started work on new "green
computers" that would use far less energy than existing models. A
prototype of IBM's green machine has already made the cover of PC
Magazine. Given the number of PC's humming away in offices today,
the ultimate energy savings should be substantial. And the less
coal and oil burned, the less pollution--which suits the
Environmental Protection Agency just fine.

    But tens of millions of older PCs (including, yes, th one on
which I'm writing this addendum) are not energy misers. How to
speed up their replacement? TeleRead would help. Laptops are far
far more efficient than computers as a whole, and by driving down
their costs, TeleRead would promote energy conservation and help
the environment. What's more, government specs might call for
cases to be made of the most easily recyclable material.

    Needless to say, too, TeleRead would promote the shift from paper
books, magazine and newspapers. It would not happen immediately.
But it would in the long run, as screens grew sharper.

    Paper books on demand would be only a transitional technology,
and even they would be superior in some ways to the present
system; right now bookstores each year return millions of pounds
of unsold paper books to publishers hundreds or thousands of
miles away. What a waste of energy. By contrast, every book
printed on demand would find a reader. Furthermore, the same
shops that printed the paper books on demand could offer credit
for recycling; federal law could mandate use of recyclable paper.

    Clearly, however, all-electronic books and periodicals are the
greenest solution of all, and TeleRead would help us reach this
goal much faster than otherwise.

================================================================

           ADDENDUM SIX: HOW TO MAKE ALL BOOKS IMMORTA
    Back in 1985 a division of Random House published my first
book, The Silicon Jungle, a blend of computer tips and stories
from Silicon Valley. The Washington Post called the Jungle
"sprightly" and "thorough." The book was not Madame Bovary or
even Soul of a New Machine, but it did serve up many new fact
about the industry and the people in it. My Jungle also carried
predictions from Arthur C. Clarke; what's more, it told of the
travails of reaching his Kaypro II in Sri Lanka in the days of
300-b.p.s. modems. I had helped set up the trans-Pacific computer
link for the scriptwriting of the movie 2010, and in the future,
a few technobuffs just might want to know what went on.

    To the Library of Congress, however, The Silicon Jungle
apparently did not exist until I called the omission to the
Library's attention in summer 1993. Earlier I could find it in
neither the copyright records nor the catalogue.
    Perhaps Ballantine Books division of Random House never sent
a copy to the Library for full, formal registration, or else the
librarians lost my book, discarded it, or never filed it away in
the first place. If other writers dialed up the Library o
Congress catalogue, some might very well see similar omissions. A
library official believes that Ballantine Books may be at fault
here, and I'm prepared to accept this explanation. I thank her
for promptly correcting the oversight after she learned about it.
My criticism here is over the system, not the dedicated
librarians who run the Library of Congress.

    Still, a lesson emerges here: Computerized libraries are onl
as reliable as the people who run them, or at least the
publishers on whom the libraries rely. What happens in the
future, especially if we use centralized databases; just how can
TeleRead be a safe repository of books and other material? Can we
really immortalize books? After two thousand years, historians
still mourn the destruction of the great library at Alexandria,
Egypt; it's been said that the calamity cost society most of it
gathered wisdom. How can we avoid a high-tech reenactment? Note,
too, that in 1851, a fire destroyed all 35,000 books in the mai
library of the Library of Congress
    Below are two precautions to take against the failings of
people and machines.

    Precaution #1: Realize That Books Are Too Important to
Entrust Just to Librarians and Publishers

    Imagine how many good books would drop out of sight if
writers and publishers had to depend on bookstore sales alone.
That is why TeleRead should increase the power of librarians and
decrease that of the buyers at big book-chains. Thousands of
librarians across the country could take part in this process to
avoid too much influence from Washington or New York
    Just the same, writers and publishers should also play a role
in deciding which books go online and get compensation; TeleRead
would allow this by way of "bypass" books (explained in the main
essay).
    Eventually, most every manuscript should be fodder for the
central database so that future generations can second-guess
librarians and our publishing establishment. Moby Dick was not
exactly a brisk seller in its time. At least, however, its found
its way into print; without TeleRead, future Melvilles may not
fare so well in the present commercial climate.

Precaution #2: Protect the Central Database--
To Avoid an Electronic Alexandria
    TeleRead could actually be more secure than our presen
library system. Among other features, TeleRead could offer:

    * Geographically dispersed databases--as many as we could afford.
Some might even be outside the United States, and, eventually, in
space as well. To the user, of course, America's collection o
memory banks would seem like one central database. Even if the
world did not have one database, there is no reason why
individual nations could not protect each other's virtual
libraries.

    * Real-time replication of information to the extent that
technology would permit. This should be at least a goal.

    * Constant backups on read-only media of different kinds*and
constant monitoring of the integrity of media, since questions
still exist about the permanence of some storage methods.

    * Use of different contractors to run databases.

    * Perhaps different operating systems among the databases.
This would be one way to reduce the virus threat, beyond
scanning.

    * Building TeleReader machines with enough mass storage so
that eventually users could preserve almost everything they had
ever dialed up
    * Letting the TeleReaders themselves use different operating
systems if possible, so that (a) it would be harder for a virus
to infect all of them and (b) more vendors could compete for
contracts. Detailed standards would allow compatibility with the
central database, regardless of the operating systems employed.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
    By truly immortalizing all books, we would not just help
literature. We would also advance the cause of peace. Hitler, it
will be recalled, did not just try to exterminate the world's
Jews; he also sought to wipe out their culture. Today the Serbs
are burning their enemies' books. But with everyone's heritage
preserved for the ages--in databases across the
world--ethnic-cleansers would have one fewer motive.

================================================================
     ADDENDUM SEVEN: TELEREAD AND COMMUNITY NETWORKS
    Big commercial services like to talk about "online communities"--
people with similar interests, even if they may be thousands of
miles apart. That's fine. Much has been accomplished in this
respect. But how about *real* communities? Can high-tech help
bring them together--help citizens communicate
with each other; learn more about their local governments and
schools and libraries; and perhaps hook in with the outside world
through the Internet or other networks? The answer is an
unqualified yes. Around the United States--and in Canada, New
Zealand and elsewhere--citizens are forming community networks
Many are called Free-Nets and use similar software. Patche
together mainly by volunteers, community networks could be a
national treasure if nurtured.

    TeleRead would not replace these networks--quite the opposite.
Indeed, *if* people from a community showed an interest, they
could use TeleRead's infrastructure for their own networks at a
fraction of the cost now needed. Under TeleRead, even small rural
towns and cash-- strapped communities could establish networks
If nothing else, by driving down the cost of computers, TeleRead
would vastly increase the number of people using the networks in
poorer cities. (Needless to say, TeleReaders could and should be
able to dial up independent BBS's having nothing to do with the
national network.)

    The program might also help finance the technical trainIng of the
system operators who ran local networks of various kinds. You
might liken this to the programs to train people for community
access television. Training for local community networks needn't
be any more elaborate than training for cable TV.

    Simply put, ordinary Americans of all income levels should be
able to talk to each other via computer and run their own
community systems--not just serve as mindless receptacles for the
national media
=================================================================


                ADDENDUM EIGHT: WHAT TELEREA
              WOULD MEAN FOR THE BLIND AND DEAF

    Imagine the frustration of the blind and other visually impaired
people. Only a small percentage of books, magazines an
newspapers ever make it into Braille, which most blind people do
not know anyway.

    TeleRead, however, would put virtually all new publications
online--and old ones, too, eventually. And it would encourag
the development of affordable portable computers with speech
synthesizers that could read aloud material from TeleRead'
network. What's more, people using TeleReaders could vary the
size and style of print--a big help to the visually impaired wit
some sight left. Certainly TeleReaders could work with
large-screen monitors.

    What's more, TeleRead would benefit the deaf, who, if the printed
word gives way entirely to sound-intensive multimedia, could b
more cut off from the rest of the world.

    The blind and the deaf would also come out ahead through the use
of electronic forms. Speech synthesizers could read aloud from
detailed prompts to guide the blind through the e-forms; and the
deaf could benefit from instructions far more explicit than thos
on paper forms.
    But it is the electronic library that perhaps could most change
the lives of the blind and the deaf. From Gallaudet University in
Washington, a deaf-oriented institution, comes an e-mail note
from an educator named Kathy Pongor. She writes of TeleRead: "It
would be such a boon for the population I'm currntly designing a
computer lab for--the deaf blind.
    "Speech synthesizers don't work, and most of the output must b
either in Braille or large print.....We have three people working
full time just trying to handle the textbook and class note needs
of five students (who are not even taking a full classload).

    "So much time is wasted, trying to 'reinvent the wheel,' or in
this case retyping the text (although we should be upgraded to a
scanning/translation system by the end of the month).

    "I also work with multihandicapped deaf children. They are s
threatened by the printed word, but LOVE computers. They would
read or write anything off a computer screen, but don't
spontaneously pick up books unless prodded to do so.
    "Keep in touch."

================================================================
     ADDENDUM NINE: OF TROLLEYS AND "SAVAGE INEQUALITIES"

    Public libraries, on and offline, will be like schools in th
future. If the middle and upper classes do not rely on them, then
many libraries will suffer just as public schools have declined
in our large cities. The best precaution against this would be a
virtual central database for rich and poor alike. Then we would
not replicate online the "savage inequalities" of our schools.
Whether children lived in McLean, Virginia, rural Nebraska or
Harlem, they could still dial up the same books.

    Imagine my disappointment, then, when Ken Dowlin, city librarian
for San Francisco, wrote a paper in which he said that "local
libraries inter-connected with a sophisticated navigation system
will become a Global Village Library. This is in contrast to the
view of some technologists who believe that there is need for one
gigantic electronic library in a central location. Not only is
the one gigantic electronic library impractical, it is
undesirable. The world is not homogeneous and we should not wish
it so."

    TeleRead does not insist on one big world library, and I am most
baffled why Ken Dowlin acts as if we must choose between local
collections (connected via networks) and a Big Brotherish
database that serves the entire planet from one city.

    I myself favor a mix of Internet-style servers (connected
computers controlled by many different individuals, schools,
companies, other institutions or governments) and an easy-to-use
*national* library-- a form of electronic federalism. The big
library could pick up the best technology and some content from
the servers. We could replicate the virtual central library at
different locations for security's sake, and also to reduc
communications costs.

    This hybrid system, this electronic federalism, would be far mor
desirable than local servers alone. Long ago, many Americans onc
could go good distances by following one trolley line to the
next. It was a fine system, but no replacement for express
trains. We need both trolleys and trains.

    Alas, much of the time, when I board a trolley on today's
Internet, it goes nowhere. I may get a message saying that 
server is down, or that the material is not available to me
(perhaps for copyright-related reasons). I'm also irked by
slow-responding servers when I key in commands. A virtual central
database, on the other hand, could maintain technical standards
better and be more easily upgraded as computers improved.
    But what's meant by the words "virtual central" in this context?
A schoolchild or other person dialing up the database would see
it as one big, electronic library, even though people and
machinery could be in different locations. A database like thi
would be much, much easier to use than a whole collection of
independently run servers.

    If anything a virtual central database would be better for
individual communities. Local and university librarians, using
federal money, but working within their own allotments, could
help choose books qualifying for royalties from the national
database. Then local authors in San Francisco and other cities
would fare much better than now. They could self-publish or get
published more easily than under the present system, in which so
many houses are fixated on best-seller lists and national and
international markets. Isn't *content* one of the best ways of
reflecting local sensibilities? And couldn't this system give
local authors a better shot at a truly national market--and
perhaps a global one, too, since interested natios could exchange
books and whole libraries? With more opportunites for writer
beyond the Hudson River, publishers in New York would appreciate
talent in the boonies more than ever.

    Even more important, with a national library for rich and poor
alike, we would stand less chance of replicating online the
"savage inequalities" of the American school system. Otherwise
the upper-middle and upper classes would favor their own private
alternatives and neglect the reading needs of the poor. I
nothing else, public libraries in Bethesda and Beverly Hill
might enjoy better funding for online acquisitions and services
than those in Anacostia and Watts. Steve Cisler of Apple Computer
once looked up materials costs for public libraries in California
in this era of paper books. He found "sort of a library version
of J. Kozol's 'savage inequalities." In 1988 the per capita
figures were: $87.46 for Beverly Hills, $4.93 for Butte County
(rural north), $16.77 for Los Angeles, $27.63 for Menlo Park
$25.52 for San Francisco, $30 for Santa Clara County, and $2.51
for Shasta County. Five years later I doubt that Shasta is
breathing down Beverly Hills's neck in a library spending race.

    Nor are such injustices unique to California. I live in
Alexandria, Va., where the public libraries have a horribl
limited selection of books compared to nearby Fairfax County, an
where many on high-- tech topics are obsolete. I pity the
students here without easy transportation to better-off suburban
libraries. Unless libraries could freely share online holdings
without copyright worries, Ken Dowlin's approach just would not
work. The Alexandria students couldn't dial up the same material
as those in Fairfax County.

    That leads to the issue of how authors and publishers would be
compensated and protected if the local server system were fair to
children and other library users in different places. To Ken
Dowlin's credit, he admits that his vision does not already
include "a system to deal with copyright and dissemination tha
protects the ownership of information and knowledge in an
electronic display." Hold on a moment. As the author of six
books, I have a slight interest in the above. Other people do,
too--Random House, Time Warner, Knight-Ridder and the rest. And
you can bet that talks between information companies, libraries
and other special interest groups will go on forever, while our
schoolchilden suffer, especially students from low-income and
rural families.

    Meanwhile I notice that an online bookstore wants readers to pay
$5 to download a 25-page short story from Stephen King. When
trying to get children to enjoy books, do we really want th
meter running at 20 cents a page? Stephen King just might be the
author whose works most excited a young reader, and I don't have
to tell Ken Dowlin about the relationship between recreational
reading and reading skills in general. Without the central
database, we may well have arrangements like the one for the King
story. And I won't blame publishers. In a similiar situation
today, I, too, might charge the 20 cents a page to allow for
illegal reproductions of copyrighted material. I'd have to let
honest reader subsidize the freeloaders. Clearly it's simplistic
to make villains of publishers (indeed I'd applaud the
adventuriousness of the online bookstore).

    An aside: The existence of a virtual central library would not
rule out private companies' publishing paper books or setting up
their own databases. I suspect, however, that in most cases,
companies would make more money by focusing on the big national
library. If censorship problems did arise, some Lyle Stuart-styl
publishers could do very well with their own networks. I myself,
however, suspect that with a system of many librarians involve
there, TeleRead would offer *more* diversity and freedom of
expression than today when many marketers are trying so hard to
homogenize books.

    The biggest irony, of course, is that some of the same
librarians talking against true centralization online believe in
centralization of a traditional kind. An author's note about Ken
Dowlin says: "He directs twenty-seven facilities with a $21
million operating budget. Projects currently in progress includ
the supervision of the building of a $140 million New Mai
Library and $20 million in capital improvement in the branc
libraries. The New Main Library will be a 370,000 square-- foot
building, doubling the size of the current Main..."
    Just what does such pride in size tell taxpayers in an era whe
governments are trying to get the most for the money? While th
$140-million building is necessary today--given the
*current* state of technology--it should not be a source of pride
but rather a source of frustration. The $140 million could hav
bought more than 140,000 portable computers even at today's
prices. It could have paid the advances on at least 25,000 first
novels or have purchased tens of thousands of new paper books,
magazines and professional journals. And without such a massive
Main Library, the number and size of local branches could be
dramatically increased.

    Again, I can see the need for $140-million libraries now, but
not in the future. Much of the money might better go toward small
neighborhood branch libraries--offering in-person advice and
encouragement to children and other people who wanted to dial up
books from home. Talk about the need for decentralization.

==================================================================

        ADDENDUM TEN: HOW TO USE ENCRYPTION IN WAYS THAT WOULD NOT
                 BE SO THREATENING TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST

    I am not opposed to encryption per se. Quite the contrary: I
see it as invaluable for safeguarding government records and
privacy of electronic mail. I do worry, though, about encryptio
of e-books. Technology is too quirky to build a whole copyright
system around encryption and risk having it defeated. Copyrights
go on decades after the deaths of writers, and the last thing we
need is a Chernobyl of literary law
    If, however, we must encrypt e-books, as seems to be the wis
of many right now, then we should use the technology in ways that
are not so menacing to the public interest. Here's one good
scenario:

    We might follow some existing plans for  decryption-metering
devices that could unscramble information distributed in many
ways such as through the Internet, cable cast or CD-ROM. Just as
is already proposed, users would have to use modems to restock
their accounts with credits to obtain more material.

    However, as *I* envision, the restocking requirement would
not be for the sake of forcing users to pay for items such as e-
books. Rather it would exist just to assure that authors an
publishers received proper compensation from the TeleRead
program's national fund. Users would not have to report dialups
constantly--only after downloading X number of books or after Y
number of days had passed. What's more, the reporting could take
place in a flash, almost as soon as users dialed into the fund's
computers.

    With this system, even before the optimal network
configuation for the national library was in place, publishers
could distribute TeleRead books by whatever means they deemed
fit. Books could also go out over the Internet and services such
as CompuServe and Prodigy, as well as BBSes. And local libraries
could run servers with e-books. Because the actual payments to
publishers and authors would from be TeleRead rather than local
libraries, this system would be much, much fairer to the people
of Watts and Appalachia. The ultimate goal, of course, would be
to have TeleRead cover all equivalents of today's paper
books--obliterating inequalities.

    Yes, a network configured for TeleRead is the best answer in
terms of the most powerful search capabilities, the best
hypertext possibilities, and other considerations, including
costs to publishers and other information providers. But I, of
all people, am certainly open to interim solutions, as long as no
one gouges readers, writers, or publishers.

    In fact, the solution above could be a permanent one as well.
Even with a TeleRead-optimized net in effect, people could still
obtain books through any network, BBS or local library that they
wanted.

    Consider, too, that some experts foresee the time when we could
store the entire Library of Congress on a chip. Then readers
would not need to dial up TeleRead for any e-books but the
newest; the books would already be at hand. With quick,
effortless connections, people would report accesses.

    Via cellular radio or the equivalent, in fact, the reporting
could occur without users even being aware of it. To allay
privacy fears of some, the automatic reporting mechanism could b
switched off and alternatives used, such as the equivalent o
anonymous debit cards (with new ones obtained in exchange for old
ones). Or else reporting could happen through middle people or
organizations trusted by both users and the government. What's
more, a way might even be found for individual ownership of
TeleReaders not to be known to the government, just to the middle
people--and maybe even not them if e-books were absolutely fre
without even subscription costs. Needless to say, we could emplo
these same concepts to protect privacy even without automatic
reporting. Clearly, then, if the proper safeguards were in place,
readers would actually enjoy more privacy than they do today at
paper-era libraries. In any event, to use encryption in the
public interest, we need to keep e-books affordable and also
respect privacy concerns.

============================================================
               ADDENDUM ELEVEN: HOW
      TELEREAD COULD *HELP* INFORMATION COMPANIES
          SUCH AS AS MEAD DATA AND COMPUSERVE

    On the surface, TeleRead would seem to be a disaster for
companies such as Mead Data that resell information from many
sources and mark up the price.

    Actually, however, Mead and similar corporations could come
out far ahead. Consider the opportunities. Though public
librarians would make acquisitions for the TeleRead's national
library online, the physical databases would be privately owned;
and contracting and subcontracting opportunities would abound
Mead could take advantage of its existing experience with large
databases.

    Bear in mind, too, that TeleRead would *not* be 
monopoly--quite the opposite. Already this proposal tells how
print shops could use material from the national library and pay
next to nothing for it. Dial-up fees for publishers and writers,
after all, would be dial-up fees--whether the material reached
readers directly or via the printers. Well, the same principl
would apply to corporations such as Mead that resold the materia
in electronic format
    Why would readers want to subscribe to a service from Mead o
other private companies? Because the corporations could add valu
in the form of their own hypertext links and other ways of
rearranging material in the databses.

    Companies could also offer CompuServe-style forums and othe
services--many of them related to material in their databases.
For example, customers could read books, make comments, and
instantly log on again and exchange remarks with other readers
and with authors who were under contract. What's more, companies
could use subscription fees rather than selling the material on a
book-by-book basis. Remember, the books themselves would be just
part of the service. So there would indeed be added value.

    In addition, if TeleRead used the encryption method described
in another addendum, CompuServe and other networks could transmit
books, software and other material available under TeleRead even
before a national database was operating.

    Most of all, TeleRead would dramatically expand the size of
the audience of electronically transmitted text. TeleReader
would be far, far better for reading texts than HDTVs not
designed for such a purpose.

    Yes, TeleRead would make affordable books available directly
by way of a national library online--but splendid opportunties
would still exist for the private vendors of information.

=================================================================

              ADDENDUM TWELVE: UPDATES

    * Greg Simon, domestic policy advisor to Al Gore, has forwarde
the TeleRead proposal to the Office of Science and Technology
Policy for consideration.
    * Thomas C. Komarek, Assistant Secretary of Labor for
Administration and Management, says: "Your proposal contains some
very interesting concepts for expanding and enhancing computer
technology throughout the nation. Moreover, your suggested
database containing books covering a broad spectrum of subjects
would certainly encourage reading."

    * William F. Buckley, Jr., endorsed the basic TeleRead concept,
"a bracing idea," in a column published around May 21, 1993. The
exact date may vary from newspaper to newspaper. The column went
out under the suggested headline "The TeleRead in Your Future."
Among U.S. journalists, Mr. Buckley is one of the foremost
defenders of property rights--perhaps the foremost. In supporting
TeleRead, he is being consistent. Existing copyright laws are
incapable of protecting digitized books and other intellectual
property.
    * Grass-roots reaction is terrific. One of my favorite comments
is from Loretta Trentanelli--who, as LoriHon, is active in the
Home Schooling Forum on America Online. "If TeleRead becomes a
reality," she says from Illinois, "it'll open a world for all
kinds of people, me included! Heck with the kids. They can come
in and read after Mom is finished!" But why keep them waiting?
TeleReaders in the end could be almost as cheap as calculators,
meaning that families could afford one for each child. Loretta
Trentanelli goes on: "Even anti-taxers like me would be willing
to foot the bill for something so practical an
knowledge-infectious." By putting tens of thousands of books
online--for free or for small subscription fees--TeleRead coul
help public schools, private schools, religious schools, and home
schools alike.

    * Michael Dirda, the steel-town native whom I mention in my
argument against "Knowledge Stamps," has just won the Pulitzer
Prize for literary criticism. As if that isn't enough, novelist
Toni Morrison, also from Lorain, Ohio, has won a Nobel Prize. The
point here is that some of world's best talent comes from
out-of-the-way places; and TeleRead could help future Dirdas and
Morrisons. Their numbers would dramatically increase, benefittin
society in general. We mustn't let good books become the province
of just the elite.
    * Xerox's research center in Palo Alto, California, has developed
experimental LCD screens with a resolution as good as that of
most laser-printed documents. Don't look for such miracles at
your computer store tomorrow. The screens, however, are one more
indication that the technology for TeleReaders isn't as exotic as
the ignorant would think. What's more, industry gossips are
already talking about Intel's plans to produce the powerful
Pentium chips for notebook computers. The old wisdom from Arthur
C. Clarke is truer than ever: Experts are more often wrong in
saying that something can't be done than in saying that it can.
If the LCDs from Xerox aren't the answer, then surely the right
displays will come from elsewhere.

    * Having shown how TeleRead could save money through the mass use
of electronic forms, I am dropping my suggestion for a
five-percent TV tax. It is no long necessary. Ideally cable
companies--along with phone companies-- will see benefit in the
plan as it now exists. TeleRead could send billions of dollars of
business their way. As before, I suggest that TeleRead could use
telcom leased from the private sector.

    * I don't know if Peter Drucker, the management expert and
business philospher, has seen the TeleRead proposal, but it he
might be quite open to it. He recently told Wired magazine: "We
have to rethink the whole concept of intellectual property, which
was focused on the printed word. Perhaps within a few decades
the distinction between electronic transmissions and the printed
word will have disappeared. The only solution may be a universal
licensing system. Where you basically become a subscriber, an
where it is taken for granted that everything that is published
is reproduced.
    * TeleRead was the topic of a friendly article in the summer
issue of the magazine published by the Internet Society.

    * I testified on TeleRead before the Working Group on
Intellectual Property of the Information Policy Committee of the
National Information Infrastructure Task Force. I'm hardly
expecting any fast results here. An important job of education
needs to be done with the NII people and the Clinton
Administration in general. There is a major distinction between
(1) a cost-effective, carefully phased-in program such as
TeleRead and (2) the government splurging several hundred billion
dollars on data highways in the grand spirit of traditonal public
works projects. I'm hoping that the NII people will understand
this difference. Under TeleRead, phone lines and even databas
facilities would be privately owned. And, of course, as a result
of the multiple use of the technology, TeleRead would actually
*reduce* the burden of government while consuming just half a
percent of the Gross Domestic Product (an amount more than
recovered).

    * Vice President Gore has written me: "I am impressed with this
detailed and very professional presentation. The information you
provided certainly appears to contain ideas that merit careful
attention. I will retain this material for future consideratio
as the President and I work on related policies and programs."

                             END