imageI like this unofficial ePUB logo from Travis Alber. Oh, how the IDPF‘s e-book format needs an official logo—so people will know that X software can display Y book in an authentic ePUB format, truly satisfying the organization’s requirements. May Aaron inspire the IDPF to get to work! But not everyone wants the capitalization handled the way his unofficial logo does.

Mike Cook, the guy behind the helpful new ePub Books blog—yes, he’s stepped forward and is a well-meaning grassroots type, not an evil, anonymous corporation flack doing stealth PR—suggested a poll. And, yes, I’ll run one in the next post to address this fun issue. Mike, also ex-editor of the Project Gutenberg newsletter and Webmaster of PG-News.org, says he prefers ePub, which is how Aaron seems to want it in nonlogo situations.

image On Jon Noring‘s new 52-member EPub Community list, which I highly recommend people sign up for, a variety of opinions exist. I’m sticking to ePUB for logo purposes but recognize that ePub would look better in print.

“My two ‘favs’ are ‘EPub’ and ‘ePub,'” says Jon, who has “some difficulty with using ‘PUB’ since that implies an acronym, which is not implied.'” Joseph Harris, another list member, says ePUB reminds him of  British pubs.

Why NOT a reminder of Brit pubs?

image Regardless of all the alcohol in the glasses and fat in the chips, however, I like annotations-related capabilities of, er, ePUB—so why not? Annotation capabilities can lead to socializing (around core texts), in the best tradition of pubs. And of course PUB suggestions “publications.”

The IDPF hasn’t taken an official position on spelling and capitalization. To sum up, the possibilities as listed by Mike are ePub, Epub, EPub, EPUB and epub.

Two threads of interest on the list: The debate over scripting within ePUB files (started by Jon) and dumping of TEI documents into ePUB (Robert Nagle).

And some of the publishers and Web sites involved with the list: Feedbooks, BooksForABuck, Mushroom eBooks, WalkBroad Publishing and 12 to Midnight. I hope that other houses, including majors, will soon join them. Wait. I see that George Walkley, the digital strategy director of Little Brown in the U.K., is already aboard. Great!

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