Abstract:
1 Publishing refers to the act of selecting, producing and disseminating documents or
literary works such as books, newspapers, magazines, tabloids and much more to a large
audience. In a traditional sense it involves the distribution of printed works. Seemingly,
there is a shift in technological approaches in the way publishing is done. Conversely,
with 21st century, many publishing houses are engaging in electronic publishing as a
complementary to traditional publishing.
2 According to Peek, R.P and Newby, B.N (1996), Electronic publishing is not necessarily
bound by any traditions. With precision, Chennupati, Schubert and Heng (2006) argue
that it refers to the application of computing software by a publisher to information
content created and packaged for a specific audience, and the distribution of the final
product through electronic means.
3 The term “electronic publishing” can be interpreted in many different ways. As such,
publishing is an integrated process aimed at providing information in different quantities
and with different qualities to different categories of end-users (Ramaiah et al. 2006). It
can also extend to be a networking support to collaborative authorship and electronic
communication among authors, editors, referees, and other participants in the publishing
process. Since “publishing” implies production and distribution, however, the term refers
most obviously to the generation of publications in electronic form or, at least, with the
aid of electronics (Lancaste 1995).
4 The personal computer has revolutionized communication, and digitized text has
introduced a radically new medium of expression (Hanham 1993). Moreover, these medium of expression are in form of e-resources such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, websites,
networks and blogs.