'The post-digital publishing paradigm offers authors, readers, publishers and scholars the opportunity to engage with the production and circulation of the book (in all its forms) beyond the conventional boundaries and binaries of the pre-digital and digital eras.
'Post-Digital Book Cultures: Australian Perspectives is a collection of scholarly writing that examines these opportunities, from a range of disciplinary and methodological approaches, with the aim of engaging with the questions that define post-digital book cultures beyond the role of e-books. Examinations of digital publishing in the literary field can often be characterised as either narratives of decline or narratives of revolution. As we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century, what has become clear is that neither of these approaches accurately encapsulate the role of ‘the digital’ on contemporary publishing practice. Rather than upending book publishing culture, the emergence of digital technologies and platforms in the field has complicated and recontextualised the production, circulation and consumption of books.
'This collection of essays brings together contributions from scholars and industry practitioners to consider the changing nature of the production of the book and the circulation of book culture within a post-digital context and platform enclosures.' (Publication summary)
'Post-Digital Book Cultures: Australian Perspectives is the fifth volume in the Monash Publishing Series. The first four titles gathered research from the Academic Days of Australia’s annual Independent Publishing Conference, which was sadly lost to book scholars in 2020. I suspect that this title was then commissioned from academics and students connected to the University of Melbourne Publishing and Communications program. This source is worth mentioning, as it seems this program—and Melbourne-connected scholars—are coming to serve as the hub for a developing school of thought around digitally mediated publishing practices and book communities. This collection is a fair representation of that “school”. It also seems appropriate that these ideas are forming in Australia, a nation with a short history of print and codices, a small population (and an even smaller bookish one), and vast physical distances that are often best overcome through digital platforms and technologies.' (Introduction)
'Post-Digital Book Cultures: Australian Perspectives is the fifth volume in the Monash Publishing Series. The first four titles gathered research from the Academic Days of Australia’s annual Independent Publishing Conference, which was sadly lost to book scholars in 2020. I suspect that this title was then commissioned from academics and students connected to the University of Melbourne Publishing and Communications program. This source is worth mentioning, as it seems this program—and Melbourne-connected scholars—are coming to serve as the hub for a developing school of thought around digitally mediated publishing practices and book communities. This collection is a fair representation of that “school”. It also seems appropriate that these ideas are forming in Australia, a nation with a short history of print and codices, a small population (and an even smaller bookish one), and vast physical distances that are often best overcome through digital platforms and technologies.' (Introduction)
