Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jan 31, 2010, 10:42 AM

Here is an update from Publisher's Lunch (a publishing industry newsletter) that details some of the dispute between Macmillan and Kindle.   This is an urgent issue for anyone who cares about books.   What happens when those who publish and those who sell books clash?   How will this be resolved?   No answers, but we all should be keeping an alert and questioning stance here because the future of the humanities is bound up with all of these issues of production, distribution, and consumption.   As I've said so many times in this blog, you cannot change one part of the equatio without disrupting the other parts as well.   

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Aug 12, 2009, 09:37 AM

If academic publishing is a topic near and dear to your heart--and if you are an academic in any field from African history to archeology to the various sciences taken over by commercial price-gauging publishers; if you are a publisher; if you are a librarian; if you are dean with a faculty coming up for tenure or promotion; or if you are a provost charged with paying for all of this . . . . well, then, you should buy this book.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jul 23, 2009, 12:56 PM

If we really believe that Information Wants to Be Free, in Stewart Brand's famous phrase, then why are some of the visionaries of the Information Age rushing to old-fashioned commercial publishing to broadcast their ideas? Could it be that they've figured out that "free information" means they can't make a good living publishing on the Internet so, not exactly practicing what they preach, they turn to commercial publishing to make a profit on their ideas about the Internet?

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jun 03, 2009, 12:27 PM
Excellent piece in INSIDE HIGHER ED by Scot McLemee on our own hybrid publishing moment in scholarly publishing.  It's not all electronic, it's not all conventional print, we're at a "tension point."  Read it here:  http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee244

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Mar 09, 2008, 11:49 AM
Some more thoughts on e-publishing. I'm for it (yes! of course!) but my pet peeve is thinking any new technology will solve problems that it cannot possibly solve. False expectations can actually limit potential. Yes, to e-publishing. No, to over-promising what it can accomplish at this historical moment (who knows what it might be able to accomplish in the future).

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Mar 03, 2008, 02:42 PM
More thoughts on e-publishing

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on May 21, 2007, 10:58 AM
I just bought C P Snow's Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959) both as a physical book (I hadn't reread it in ages!) and, for $3.95 or so, as an Amazon On-Line Reader. It didn't always work perfectly, but I like it a lot and will buy this way again.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Mar 18, 2007, 12:19 PM
Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing media star and critic, offers wise insights into the different ways we read, on screen and off, in this reblog from Locus Magazine, March 2007.