History of Electronic Publishing

HISTORY
Commercial electronic publishing began in the mid-1970s with the development of databases of scientific, legal, and business information. These were used mainly by information specialists in large companies and universities, and ran on mainframe computers or minicomputers. Few small businesses or people at home used any form of electronic publication, since the information itself was too specialized, and the software and hardware needed to access it were too expensive.
The consumer market for electronic publishing really began with the development of GUIs and the CD-ROM in the late 1980s. Some industry commentators expected that CD-ROM publishing would revolutionize the publishing industry but the market for CD-ROMs has been slow to develop. With the exception of encyclopedia and journal publishing, the changes to the publishing industry brought about by electronic publishing have been fairly limited so far. Some publishers who adopted the new technology as soon as it appeared found that the market was too small, and consequently they had to scale down their electronic-publishing activities. Publishers who were initially too conservative, however, have found it hard to catch up in such areas as reference, where electronic publishing could have benefited them.