Until 1999, the ebook evolution had been a growing phenomenon, affecting personal buyers more than institutional ones. 1999 brought us dedicated ebook readers, an open standard for ebook publication, netLibrary, and Microsoft's announcements of their reader, ClearType, and deals with publisher R.R.Donnelly, and, early in 2000, with Barnes & Noble. With some exceptions, libraries and other institutional buyers have remained onthe periphery of this evolution, watching its development, worrying about several issues, and waiting to see how these issues will play out before committing themselves heavily. Three of these issues are device dependency, format of content, and digital rights management, or DRM.
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