Burning the Page


Book Description

A groundbreaking vision on the future of reading, from an early innovator on Amazon's Kindle team. Is digital the death knell for print? Or will it reinvigorate the written word? What will happen to bookstores, book browsing, libraries, even autographs? Will they die out—or evolve into something new? In Burning the Page, digital pioneer Jason Merkoski charts the ebook revolution's striking impact on the ways in which we create, discover, and share ideas. From the sleek halls of Silicon Valley to the jungles of Southeast Asia, Merkoski explores how ebooks came to be and predicts innovative and interactive ways digital content will shape our lives. Throughout, you are invited to continue the conversation online and help shape this exciting new world of "Reading 2.0." For those who love books, collect books, own an e-reader, vow never to own one, or simply want to know where books are headed, this is a crucial guide to both the future of reading and to our digital culture as a whole.




Book Wars


Book Description

This book tells the story of the turbulent decades when the book publishing industry collided with the great technological revolution of our time. From the surge of ebooks to the self-publishing explosion and the growing popularity of audiobooks, Book Wars provides a comprehensive and fine-grained account of technological disruption in one of our most important and successful creative industries. Like other sectors, publishing has been thrown into disarray by the digital revolution. The foundation on which this industry had been based for 500 years – the packaging and sale of words and images in the form of printed books – was called into question by a technological revolution that enabled symbolic content to be stored, manipulated and transmitted quickly and cheaply. Publishers and retailers found themselves facing a proliferation of new players who were offering new products and services and challenging some of their most deeply held principles and beliefs. The old industry was suddenly thrust into the limelight as bitter conflicts erupted between publishers and new entrants, including powerful new tech giants who saw the world in very different ways. The book wars had begun. While ebooks were at the heart of many of these conflicts, Thompson argues that the most fundamental consequences lie elsewhere. The print-on-paper book has proven to be a remarkably resilient cultural form, but the digital revolution has transformed the industry in other ways, spawning new players which now wield unprecedented power and giving rise to an array of new publishing forms. Most important of all, it has transformed the broader information and communication environment, creating new challenges and new opportunities for publishers as they seek to redefine their role in the digital age. This unrivalled account of the book publishing industry as it faces its greatest challenge since Gutenberg will be essential reading for anyone interested in books and their future.




The eBook Revolution


Book Description

The book ecosystem is radically changing, and libraries must change with it. This book tackles the controversial discussion about eBooks and explores librarian-driven solutions and visions for the future of libraries in the 21st century. The eBook Revolution: A Primer for Librarians on the Front Lines is exactly what its title promises: an essential resource for librarians facing the formidable task of coordinating the library-wide transition to eBooks and fielding questions from patrons about eBooks on a daily basis. After an introduction that covers the basics of eBooks and current eBook technology, the author puts things into perspective, documenting the changes that have occurred over the past decade. She also delves into important eBook issues, identifying librarian-driven solutions and providing glimpses of what libraries in the near future will likely be like. The book examines perennially critical issues such as accessibility, resource sharing, and the digital divide within the context of eBook technology and provides a clear framework for discussing eBooks, thereby enabling readers to make informed decisions regarding their own organizations.




Revolution by the Book


Book Description




The Cashless Revolution


Book Description

Financial Times, Best Books of 2022: Economics The startling picture of how China’s revolution in finance and technology is changing both Wall Street and the way individuals manage their personal finances. The future of finance – the way Wall Street operates and how individuals manage their money - is on the verge of upheaval. And the force underlying the change comes from China, where finance and technology are being merged into a system with consequences that resonate far beyond China’s border. The changes of this global revolution in finance and technology - fintech - will be as powerful as those wrought in social media, retailing and advertising by giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, which have overturned how we shop and communicate. China reinvented money with lightning speed, transforming a backward, antiquated cash-based finance system into one centered on super-apps created by technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. More powerful than anything available outside of China, they allow their billion users to pay, borrow, invest, buy goods and services, travel, chat (and far more) all fused together in one mobile phone application. Think Facebook, Google, Twitter, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, J.P. Morgan Chase all rolled into one app. We in the West need to understand China’s cashless revolution for reasons ranging from the macroeconomic to issues of personal liberty: The cutting edge of finance is now in China, forcing major financial firms in the United States and the West to figure out how not to be left behind.. China’s cashless revolution is also a harbinger of our future if we let the genie out of the bottle and allow big tech to become big finance. As money goes digital and central banks around the world consider launching digital currencies, we may have both immense convenience and a frightening concentration of power that could violate our privacy, stifle competition, increase financial risk, and give big firms or the government more control over our financial lives. And, once this genie is out of the bottle, the struggle to put it back in may be impossible.










The Oxford Handbook of Publishing


Book Description

Publishing is one of the oldest and most influential businesses in the world. It remains an essential creative and knowledge industry, worth over $140 billion a year, which continues to shape our education and culture. Two trends make this a particularly exciting time. The first is the revolution in communications technology that has transformed what it means to publish; far from resting on their laurels and retreating into tradition, publishers are doing as they always have - staying on the cutting edge. The second is the growing body of academic work that studies publishing in its many forms. Both mean that there has never been a more important time to examine this essential practice and the current state of knowledge. The Oxford Handbook of Publishing marks the coming of age of the scholarship in publishing studies with a comprehensive exploration of current research, featuring contributions from both industry professionals and internationally renowned scholars on subjects such as copyright, corporate social responsibility, globalizing markets, and changing technology. This authoritative volume looks at the relationship of the book publishing industry with other media, and how intellectual property underpins what publishers do. It outlines the complex and risky economics of the industry and examines how marketing, publicity, and sales have become ever more central aspects of business practice, while also exploring different sectors in depth and giving full treatment to the transformational and much discussed impact of digital publishing. This Handbook is essential reading for anyone interested in publishing, literature, and the business of media, entertainment, culture, communication, and information.




Reading and Writing the Electronic Book


Book Description

Developments over the last 20 years have fueled considerable speculation about the future of the book and of reading itself. This book begins with a gloss over the history of electronic books, including the social and technical forces that have shaped their development. The focus then shifts to reading and how we interact with what we read: basic issues such as legibility, annotation, and navigation are examined as aspects of reading that eBooks inherit from their print legacy. Because reading is fundamentally communicative, I also take a closer look at the sociality of reading: how we read in a group and how we share what we read. Studies of reading and eBook use are integrated throughout the book, but Chapter 5 "goes meta" to explore how a researcher might go about designing his or her own reading-related studies. No book about eBooks is complete without an explicit discussion of content preparation, i.e., how the electronic book is written. Hence, Chapter 6 delves into the underlying representation of eBooks and efforts to create and apply markup standards to them. This chapter also examines how print genres have made the journey to digital and how some emerging digital genres might be realized as eBooks. Finally, Chapter 7 discusses some beyond-the-book functionality: how can eBook platforms be transformed into portable personal libraries? In the end, my hope is that by the time the reader reaches the end of this book, he or she will feel equipped to perform the next set of studies, write the next set of articles, invent new eBook functionality, or simply engage in a heated argument with the stranger in seat 17C about the future of reading. Table of Contents: Preface / Figure Credits / Introduction / Reading / Interaction / Reading as a Social Activity / Studying Reading / Beyond the Book / References / Author Biography







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