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The Future of the Book in the Digital Age

Edited by Bill Cope, Common Ground Publishing and Angus Phillips, Oxford Brookes University, UK

…a very interesting collection of essays.
Program

…a facinating book, both stimulating and challenging for librarians as we anticipate our rapidly changing role in the face of revolutionary changes in the way information is delivered.
Scottich Health Information Network

 - chapters by leading experts in the field of publishing studies and information science
 - a broad range of perspectives on key issues such as print on demand and digital publishing
 - contributions from around the world
 - edited by two leading experts on the book and its future

With contributions from some of the world?s leading authorities, this publication considers the future of the book in the digital age. As more books are published than ever before, this timely publication addresses a range of critically important themes relating to the book - including the present and future for publishing, libraries, literacy and learning in the information society.In the early 1990s the printed word appeared to be facing a terminal crisis, threatened from all sides by new media and other forms of entertainment. Subsequently the book has proved to be resilient in the face of these challenges, confounding the predictions of those who saw its replacement, whilst digital technology is providing mechanisms that enhance our ability to produce and distribute printed books. New developments, such as the growth of self-publishing and print on demand, and initiatives from major players such as Amazon and Google, mean that the printed book is in the middle of great changes.

ISBN 1 84334 240 5
ISBN-13: 978 1 84334 240 3
December 2006
246 pages  234 x 156mm  paperback  
£39.95 / US$70.00 / €50.00

Usually dispatched within 24 hours

£59.95 / US$100.00 / €75.00

About the editors

Dr Bill Cope has been a Director of Common Ground Publishing since 1984. Common Ground runs a number of annual conferences in education, management and the humanities. He is a former academic working in a number of Australian universities, and a First Assistant Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. He is the author of a number of books, including (with Dean Mason) New Markets for Printed Books: Emerging Markets for Books, From Creator to Consumer (2002). Angus Phillips is Director of the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies and Head of the Publishing Department at Oxford Brookes University. He worked in publishing as a non-fiction editor before becoming a full-time academic. He is a member of the International Advisory Committee for the International Conference on the Book (held at Oxford Brookes in 2005) and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the International Journal of the Book. He has written on a variety of topics including the impact of the Internet, book covers and the future of the book.

Contents

Introduction
Bill Cope and Angus Phillips

If it isn’t on the Internet, it doesn’t exist
Mark Perlman

Plus ça change … print on demand reverts book publishing to its pre-industrial beginnings
Manfred H. Breede

Where is the value in publishing? The Internet and the publishing value chain
Angus Phillips

Venues for vanity: methods and means of self-published books
Christopher Kular

Towards understanding patterns of book consumption in Europe
Mihael Kovac and Mojca Kovac Sebart

The future of reading as a cultural behaviour in a multi-channel media environment
Hillel Nossek and Hanna Adoni

Bookselling culture and consumer behaviour
Audrey Laing and Jo Royle

Diversity, or is it all the same? Book consumption on the Internet in Sweden
Ann Steiner

New voices in the new millennium
David H. Lynn

Reviving the oral tradition: the evolution of audiobooks
Maureen Brunsdale and Jennifer Hootman

Access, convergence and print on demand: The library dimension
John Feather

New text technologies, globalization and the future of the book
Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

A whiff of tobacco smoke on the page
Mark Woodhouse