Little Reviews

On “Traversing the Book of MPub: An Agile, Web-first Publishing Model,” by John Maxwell and Kathleen Fraser

On “Traversing the Book of MPub: An Agile, Web-first Publishing Model,” by John Maxwell and Kathleen Fraser

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John Maxwell and Kathleen Fraser propose that publishing should start on the web in their article “Traversing the Book of MPub: An Agile, Web-first Publishing Model,” published in the Journal of Electronic Publishing. They suggest that contemporary publishing is mainly born digital anyways — rarely does an author write on paper, then undergo a publication process dedicated to preserving the printedness of the written piece. Rather, most authors create digital artifacts, and publishers subject these artifacts to automated, desktop, and…

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On “The Object and the Process; or, Take This Book and Click It!” by Darcy Cullen

On “The Object and the Process; or, Take This Book and Click It!” by Darcy Cullen

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E-books have been a game changer for scholarly communications, and academic publishers have, perhaps, been the most affected by their development and popularity. In “The Object and the Process; or, Take This Book and Click It!,” UBC Press acquisitions editor Darcy Cullen explores how book production has been affected by the digital turn. Although she suggests that e-book uptake was slow at first, it has now reached an undeniable degree of prevalence and can no longer be ignored. E-books offer…

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On “Editorial Workflows for Multimedia-Rich Scholarship,” by Cheryl E. Ball and Douglas Eyman

On “Editorial Workflows for Multimedia-Rich Scholarship,” by Cheryl E. Ball and Douglas Eyman

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Cheryl E. Ball and Douglas Eyman are both editors with the journal Kairos, and it is from this position that they write in “Editorial Workflows for Multimedia-Rich Scholarship.” Ball and Eyman point out that there is a steady increase in multimedia content in scholarly publishing, but this movement toward media richness has not necessarily been followed by appropriate workflow practices and standards. In response to this, Ball and Eyman share their knowledge of “webtexts” and their publication (separated into two…

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On “Moneyball for Book Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read,” by Alexandra Alter and Karl Russell

On “Moneyball for Book Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read,” by Alexandra Alter and Karl Russell

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In the short New York Times article, “Moneyball for Book Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read,” Alexandra Alter and Karl Russell examine Jellybooks, an analytics company that specializes in tracking reader behaviour with e-books. The big e-book retailers like Amazon already use this sort of technology in their e-readers, Alter and Russell explain. Publishers without their own specific e-readers have, until now, not been able to compete with this sort of data-driven marketing. Through consensual reading trials, Jellybooks…

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On “Breaking the Book: Print Humanities in the Digital Age,” by Laura Mandell

On “Breaking the Book: Print Humanities in the Digital Age,” by Laura Mandell

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In Breaking the Book: Print Humanities in the Digital Age, Laura Mandell contends with the form and function of the book (and especially the book of literary or cultural criticism) as well as the shift from a print-based to electronic-based humanities. She suggests that it is timely to critically engage with the academic book as universities and their outputs increasingly move online. In this sense, Mandell’s topic is akin to Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s in Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future…

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On “The Enkindling Reciter: E-Books in the Bibliographic Imagination,” by Alan Galey

On “The Enkindling Reciter: E-Books in the Bibliographic Imagination,” by Alan Galey

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In “The Enkindling Reciter: E-Books in the Bibliographic Imagination,” Alan Galey performs a bibliographic study of The Sentamentalists by Johanna Skibsbrud, from its first, small press print publication to its Kobo e-book version to its post-Giller prize larger print run. Galey argues that it is still possible — even necessary — to study the materiality of e-books like the Kobo version of The Sentamentalists as a book historian. To do so, Galey argues, requires a combination of traditional bibliographic skills…

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On “E-Book Logic: We Can Do Better,” by John Maxwell

On “E-Book Logic: We Can Do Better,” by John Maxwell

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John Maxwell takes issue with the current state of e-books in “E-Book Logic: We Can Do Better”– or, more precisely, with the e-book market. He argues that e-books are touted as being new (as of 2013) but that the electronic book, or at least electronic-facilitated writing, has a decades-long history. What is new, Maxwell suggests, is that large corporations (cough *Amazon* cough) are inventively controlling how consumers interact with digital media versus other consumer goods. In this article, Maxwell aims…

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On “Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria,” by James Somers

On “Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria,” by James Somers

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In this article for The Atlantic, James Somers explores why the original dream behind Google Books — and perhaps even behind Google itself, Somers suggests — has been quashed. Somers traces the trajectory of Google Books, from the centuries-long pipe dream of creating the world’s largest library in “one place” to its current manifestation: alive, but with utopic vision unrealized. Somers provides a compelling account of the class action lawsuit between Google and a coalition of authors and publishers, as…

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On “Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship,” by Johanna Drucker

On “Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship,” by Johanna Drucker

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In the classic chapter “Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship,” Johanna Drucker argues that computational methods are at odds with humanistic approaches. She suggests that the digital humanities needs to develop humanistic models for computer-based inquiry. In doing so, practitioners can actively resist the flattening affects of using tools, platforms, and systems that were created through purely quantitative methods, rather than the qualitative approach inherent to the humanities. Drucker’s chapter has become a digital humanities touchstone since its publication. Many DH…

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On “My Old Sweethearts: On Digitization and the Future of the Print Record,” by Andrew Stauffer

On “My Old Sweethearts: On Digitization and the Future of the Print Record,” by Andrew Stauffer

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In “My Old Sweethearts: On Digitization and the Future of the Print Record,” Andrew Stauffer hits on a key tension in universities: the digitization of print volumes. In many ways, digitization has been a boon to university libraries, as it has freed up precious real estate in the stacks and has created electronic versions of print holdings that can be accessed from anywhere. With the amount of off-campus (and even affiliated but out of country) academic work that occurs, digitization…

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