The Book Unbound: Disruption and Disintermediation in the Digital Age

Citation

Squires C, Ray Murray P, Morris P, Lewis-McPhee H, Preston L, Taylor A & Russell S (2012) The Book Unbound: Disruption and Disintermediation in the Digital Age. 2012. http://www.bookunbound.stir.ac.uk/

Abstract
The Book Unbound: Disruption and Disintermediation in the Digital Age is a research and development project funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) under the Digital Transformations theme. Collaborating on the project are the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication, Creative Writing staff at the University of Stirling, Scott Russell Publishing Services, a team of editorial and production assistants, and the Electric Bookshop. The Book Unbound project focuses on how publishing as both a business and a cultural activity is reacting to the advent of digital technologies, and on constantly changing relationships in the book trade as we move from print and paper to digital ink and screen. Seisimic shifts are resulting in a plethora of new business models that challenge the prevailing hierarchies of cultural gatekeeping as well as new modes of authorship, and have also reshaped perceptions of the book as cultural artefact. The model of the traditional publishing value chain traces the trajectory of intellectual property from the author to the end consumer, where publishing activities such as editorial, marketing and design are all performed by the single entity of the publisher. However, this process is now being disrupted and disintermediated at every stage by the intervention of digital technologies and consequent infrastructural changes. The Book Unbound explores these disruptions and disintermediations.