E-book publisher to build a library
When the Commercial Press launched its e-commerce subsidiary CP1897.com four years ago, it did not envision its e-books as a reservoir for Greater China's first Chinese e-library system.
The venture began as a digital print-on-demand system for out-of-print historical and academic Chinese books.
'Since the service was offered for personal and business use, the number of e-books printed snowballed,' CP1897.com chief operations officer Edmond Hung Chee-ping said.
Although sales of print-on-demand e-books for personal use did not pick up as quickly as expected, demand from businesses and public and university libraries in Greater China flourished, he said.
The company now has more than 15,000 Chinese titles in its e-book catalogue, which it says is the largest collection in the region.
To capitalise on its stock, CP1897.com is developing an e-library system to manage the collection.
'The United States already has a lab-library which provides large quantities of English e-books to libraries around the world; likewise, we can create one for Chinese e-books,' Mr Hung said.
The idea was born when Mr Hung discovered that, while most Hong Kong libraries stock e-books, none has a system to manage digital titles.
'There are mainland publishers trying to develop Chinese e-library systems but they are not open, which means they are not in a universal format. We are developing a system that will be compatible for all users,' he said.
CP1897.com e-library system would be launched next year, he said. It would provide digital rights management to prevent piracy.
E-books, which take three months to produce, can be three to five times more expensive than hard copy but have a number of benefits over traditional books. They take up less space, there are no physical restrictions on the number of borrowings, and out-of-print or rare historical books can be kept on the shelves indefinitely.
The e-publishing company has reprinted more than 400 e-books retrieved from Commercial Press's headquarters in Shanghai and published before 1949. The company was established in the Chinese city in 1897.
The e-books cover a wide range of topics, such as Chinese legal and early educational systems and diplomacy - all valuable research material for modern scholars.
CP1897.com plans to partner with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to reprint 100 academic books from its collections by this autumn.
It will also approach other mainland publishers to digitise their out-of-print titles.
'Our main focus will be unearthing books from Chinese publishing houses that went bankrupt or shut down during the Nationalist era,' Mr Hung says.
