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In a move to educate consumers about electronic books, the Open eBook Forum is about to launch a worldwide public awareness campaign, "Open an eBook...Discover New Worlds of Reading."

The eBook industry trade and standards association, the non-profit Open eBook Forum has designed the campaign to highlight how, in its opinion, eBook technologies and products promote literacy, provide access to books for those with reading disabilities, and have enhanced educational opportunities. The campaign launches on May 2nd, with promotions from Open eBook Forum members, such as Microsoft, Adobe Systems, Random House, and McGraw-Hill.

"This is the grand re-opening of the eBook industry," said Open eBook Forum executive director Nicholas Bogaty. "eBooks are enjoying global success in the classroom, in the business community, with travelers, and the vision impaired. In fact, sales of eBooks increased by 40% in 2001 over the previous year. We're launching this campaign to invite people to come to our site, and `Open an eBook' for free to see just how satisfying it can be to carry titles on New York Times Best-Seller list in their breast pocket or access new reading material from the comfort of their living room."

The Open eBook Forum said the campaign is also designed to promote the benefits of electronic publication for educators and the disabled. The forum said electronic books are noteworthy for their ease of distribution to students, strong search capabilities and myriad of resources for the learning and sight disabled.

The launch party for the new campaign is slated to showcase new electronic devices from companies such as Palm, Microsoft and Franklin; and include talks by educators and book industry proponents of electronic publishing.