9.1 Electronic Table of Contents

The table of contents is a straightforward navigation aid that covers basic needs of the reader. Its big advantage lies in its familiarity to the user because it corresponds to similar means for the printed book. Compared to printed books, an electronic table of contents offers improved access by allowing the user to jump to a chapter part directly by clicking on an entry. Electronic counterparts are also easily constructed automatically from book manuscripts based on the chapter structure. Systems like SuperBook, which is described at the end of this chapter, build electronic books automatically based on an enhanced notion of table of contents. Empirical results show that such systems compare favorably to more conventional computer based information presentation systems like information retrieval systems or data bases [Ega91]. Index and table of contents are particularly well suited for exploring a topic that is already familiar to the reader [Ham88].