[spectre] launch of digital publishing toolkit

[Geert Lovink]

Dear spectre,

the Institute of Network Cultures invites you to visit the new blog  
for the research project "Digital Publishing Toolkit". Here you will  
find updates about the progress of the research, but also other  
relevant links, projects, and articles. Below you will find more  
information about the project:

http://digitalpublishingtoolkit.org/

When interested in digital publishing you could also visit the Out of  
Ink project page (http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/03/20/kick-off-toolkit-digital-publishing/ 
), the blog of the first Unbound Book Conference in 2011 (http://e-boekenstad.nl/unbound/ 
), or the blog of the Boek uit de Band Conference in 2012 (Dutch only:http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/unboundbook/) 
.

Ideas and comments are welcome as always!

All the best from the INC,

Geert

--

About "Digital Publishing Toolkit"

Digital Publications are slowly ascending since a couple of years. Due  
to the rise of tablets and smartphones this development has  
accelerated and by now these publications – e-books, newspaper apps  
and digital magazines – are forever part of our media landscape. More  
and more people use mobile devices to read books and magazines and the  
coming years this way of information processing will dominate the  
market. Publishers can’t stay behind in relation to digital  
publishing. However, many publishers in the art- and cultural sector  
are unfamiliar with these developments. Knowledge, resources and  
capacities to develop new methods of digital publishing and  
participate in the digital market is missing. Moreover, the art- and  
culture books have an extra challenge, because the form and content  
are deeply intertwined.

This RAAK-MKB project will provide the research and realization of  
such a platform. The following research questions is formulated: “In  
what way can a platform be created with new tools for open source- 
publishing, by which publishers in the art- and cultural sector can  
produce interactive e-publications by themselves?”

To answer this research question, the Institute of Network Cultures  
(lectortaat Netwerkcultuur) of the Amsterdam University of Applied  
Sciences and Knowledge center Creating 010 of the Hogeschool van  
Rotterdam are executing state-of-the-art research. In collaboration  
with an already existing consortium of eleven MKB-companies consisting  
of publishers, designers and developers, a fivesome subprojects will  
be formulated. Within these subgroups publishers, designers and  
developers, (research)lecturers and students of the participating  
applied universities will collaborate.

The result is a new developed toolkit that exists of tools for digital  
publishing, based on open source-software of which the source code  
will be published and freely accessible. As a result everyone can  
freely copy, adjust and distribute the tools. Five e-publications of  
titles of the art- and culture books fund of the participating  
publishers will be produced and presented on a platform that is  
developed for that purpose. Moreover the following manual will be  
created: “How to publish an e-book?” on digital publishing processes.