Electronic Publishing: Politics and Pragmatics
Edited by Gabriel Egan
Co-published by Iter and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, this is the second volume in New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, William R. Bowen and Raymond G. Siemens, series editors. To order print copies of volumes in the series contact the ACMRS. Electronic editions of series volumes will be available through Iter later this year.
The technologies, economics, and politics of scholarly publication in the humanities will change rapidly in the near future. New electronic publication technologies that do not require large investments of capital—printing presses, warehouses, transport—generate powerful forces directing academic authors away from traditional print publication. This book brings together a team of academics experienced in this new field to explore the practical aspects of electronic publication and reflect on the politics of the knowledge landscape that is emerging. Their accounts of such practical matters as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and coding standards form part of a larger consideration of the new knowledge economy and how the humanities disciplines will fare in a world that increasingly trusts its cultural heritage to magnetism and laser optics rather than inks and paper.