Faithlife EBooks Transition *

Can someone educate me on the differences between a "faithlife e-books" resource and a logos resource? I'm happy to buy either, but wonder what differences exist, and what happens if/when logos decides to transition a faithlife ebook to logos (or if that even happens).

*I'm sure this has been discussed on a dozen forum posts, but my searches were not finding them.

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NB.Mick

Can someone educate me on the differences between a "faithlife e-books" resource and a logos resource?

Faithlife eBooks are automatically produced from an ePub source, much like a PB is compiled. In course of this production process, bible references get detected and made active links. There's no further tagging (such as milestones, books referenced etc like you would expect for a Logos resource). The automated tagging may not pick up all bible references, or get it wrong in case of incomplete references. All eBooks are of type:monograph with no Logos index, no subject metadata and no page numbers.

This all means that in many cases, you won't recognize the difference between Logos editions and eBook editions, whereas in others you might feel the frustration of reading a kindle-like ebook which just isn't the same. Daily calendar devotionals will not have a date index, bible commentaries won't scroll along your bible etc, because they are just monographs.

However, Faithlife typically does make sure that we don't have two editions to choose from, a book comes either into the eBook store or into Logos. Moreover, it often is not a decision of Faithlife. Some publishers (e.g. Abingdon) only want to sell through the eBook store, even if it's expensive scholarly books, others prefer this route for a number of books. The production capability to create the more elaborate Logos resources is limited, so we an be glad for all books in eBook format because they are part of our library like the Logos editions and otherwise simply wouldn't be there. In many cases it's also a chance to get great resources at a great price.

what happens if/when logos decides to transition a faithlife ebook to logos (or if that even happens).

This happens, but very rarely. In this case the owners of the eBook edition get a free license to the Logos edition - this doesn't take away the eBook since you may have highlights and other notes associated to that.

Hope this helps.

Please come back in case something was not clear or you need aditional information.

Mark Barnes

Books are put through an automatic converter that takes a publisher's digital files (the one they use for Kindle editions, etc.), and creates Logos compatible version with no human input. The converter recognises most Bible references, but not any other references. There won't be links to other resources. There will likely be no page numbers and certainly no other milestones. The formatting might be a bit wonky (slightly large fonts, uneven line-spacing, etc.). Typos or incorrect metadata won't be corrected. There'll be a TOC, but probably only at one level. All books are monographs, and won't have any additional tagging to make them useful in other tools. Pricing will be controlled by the publisher.

Logos resources are hand-compiled from either scans or from publisher's digital files. Links and references to other resources will be added by the editor. Page numbers will be present. Formatting will be tidied up to properly match the print edition. Typos and other errors may be corrected in the future. The TOC should be complete. If appropriate, additional tagging or metadata will be added to make them integrate with (e.g.) Factbook, Guides, Systematic Theology tools, etc. Pricing will normally be controlled by Faithlife.

Where an eBook version are transitioned to Logos editions, Faithlife effectively start from scratch and produce a second edition. Owners of the eBook edition are then gifted a copy of the new edition and end up with both in their library. Notes/highlighting from the old edition won't get transferred.

Here's a screenshot of one book, the Logos edition on the left, and the eBook edition on the right:

The two resources aren't from the same print edition, but ignoring those differences, on the right, note the incomplete TOC, missing page numbers, the missing Bible verse link (because it's not explicit enough to be captured by the automatic converter), and the inferior typography.

Ray Call

Thanks for the great explanation! If the eBook version resource from Faithlife does not list page numbers, then is it impossible to find what page a quote or selection would be from? This would be helpful if someone were writing a term paper and needed to cite sources and page numbers. Kindle and Logos would have page numbers, but what about the eBooks on Faithlife?

Mark Barnes

Thanks for the great explanation! If the eBook version resource from Faithlife does not list page numbers, then is it impossible to find what page a quote or selection would be from? This would be helpful if someone were writing a term paper and needed to cite sources and page numbers. Kindle and Logos would have page numbers, but what about the eBooks on Faithlife?

If the eBook version does not list page numbers, it's impossible from within Logos to find what page a quote is from. It is sometimes possible – but a hassle – to paste the quote into google and find the answer in Google Books or on Amazon See Inside.

That said, nowadays, schools should have rules for citing electronic resources, so it should be still possible to cite the resource, even without a page number.

(PS Kindle books often don't have page numbers. If not you have to cite the 'location' instead, or simply omit the page number.)

Ray Call

Thanks. Good answer.

Myke Harbuck

That said, nowadays, schools should have rules for citing electronic resources, so it should be still possible to cite the resource, even without a page number.

Correct. Most citation standards (Chicago, MLA, etc) permit citing of electronic sources without a page number, and permit the use of n.p. (need page) when the author still desires to include the page detail in the citation.

Todd Beall

Hi Mark,

I'm reading this post 10 months later, but it's quite helpful.

I just bought a faithlife ebook (Walter Kaiser's Coping with Change) and opened it in Logos. But when I use copy/paste or try to print a section, the footnotes don't show up anywhere. Is this another difference between faithlife ebooks and Logos books (no footnotes, or improperly copied footnotes), or am I doing something wrong? I can see the footnote numbers in Logos, and when I click on the number, it does give me the footnote (as one of a number of footnotes!), and the footnotes also appear separately at the end of each book chapter. But I can't get them to appear if I use copy/paste or if I print a section.

So...another difference seems to be how footnotes are handled (unless I am doing something wrong, which is quite possible!).

Thanks for any thoughts you might have.

Todd

NB.Mick

I just bought a faithlife ebook (Walter Kaiser's Coping with Change)

Thanks for finding and telling! Just bought it.

when I use copy/paste or try to print a section, the footnotes don't show up anywhere. Is this another difference between faithlife ebooks and Logos books (no footnotes, or improperly copied footnotes)

I think, yes. I'm not sure whether this is happening in all eBooks or not, but I've seen this in a number of eBooks: the automated production process doesn't generate "proper" Logos footnotes, but puts the footnotes like resource text at the end of the chapter, and the footnote marker is like a link to this section of text (or to the respective footnote in this section), which means they are most often showing up when reading the main text and looking for the footnote, sometimes one needs to go there to locate the FN text. It's a bit like on Kindle. This may often mean that when copy/pastig text, the footnotes don't come along come with the main text. When printing the whole chapter, the footnotes come along as chapter endnotes for me, otherwise one would need to copy them over separately.

Those non-footnotes have one aspect that's better than normal Logos footnotes: you may use highlights and notes in them.

David Thomas

I'm reading this post 10 months later, but it's quite helpful.

also note that in the last 10 months Logos has now created a "Logos e-reader" format that is manually tagged but not to the full extent as a traditional Logos edition. This is being done to make some resources available same day as the print editions is released.

Todd Beall

Thanks! Kaiser's work is an expansion of his small commentary Total Life published by Moody. I think it is quite good (for its size).

Thanks for the comments on the footnotes--that does seem to be the case! I was a bit surprised, but I'm still glad that I got the book.

Todd Beall

Thanks, David. It's a bit confusing, but it does make some sense.

I had thought that the Faithlife ebooks simply lagged the more sophisticated tagging--hadn't realized that copying/printing portions would not be the same as with a regular Logos resource (in which you also can get the footnote reference if you desire).

Thanks again.