Abstract
A new online publishing effort, eMedicine Otolaryngology–Facial Plastic Surgery (FPS), is a comprehensive textbook now being developed on the Internet (www.emedicine.com). This book is one of a series of 15 electronic textbooks written by a worldwide panel of authors and editors, and it is distributed free of charge to anyone with a computer and a modem. Advantages of online textbooks such as eMedicine Otolaryngology–FPS are that they provide readers with easy accessibility to reliable, up-to-date information, and they allow authors to quickly edit and revise editorial content and supplement traditional text with sound, graphics, and video. An ambitious undertaking, eMedicine Otolaryngology–FPS represents a significant advance in the way medical information is written, edited, and distributed. Although it is unlikely that electronic textbooks will replace traditional textbooks any time soon, these types of publishing efforts will continue to proliferate.