The Academic Book of the Future

In early 2014, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) partnered with The British Library to launch a call for teams to run The Academic Book of the Future Project. The Project brief was ‘to explore the future of the academic book in the context of Open Access publishing and the digital revolution’.1 Our team2 successfully pitched to facilitate a two-pronged approach. We are using the expert services of the Research Information Network and Dr Michael Jubb to undertake a wide-ranging series of focus groups, gathering responses to our research questions,3 whilst the core Project team are consulting with the communities of practice connected to academic books to evoke responses via more detailed pieces of commissioned research, symposia, workshops and conferences. The mid-point of the Project, Academic Book Week (9–16 November, 2015),4 will highlight a week-long showcase of this activity, plus other special events from our partners, including the launch of the volume you are now reading.

For as long as it has existed in its modern form, the academic book has operated in what Jerome McGann calls ‘a double helix of perceptual codes: the linguistic codes […] and the bibliographical codes’. It unites a particular discursive genre with a particular material format. But now the double helix is starting to unravel as new, genetically modified digital formats force us to rethink what the academic book can be. This moment of media change meshes with shifts in the funding and assessment of research, developments in researchers’ intellectual agendas and the challenges of Open Access. As disciplinary boundaries become more porous and scholarly outputs more varied, these changes will affect every stage in the life-cycle of the academic book.

This chapter explores a dystopian world in which technology has become pervasive throughout academic discourse, controlling the way in which books are authored, read, cited, and assessed. However, this is also a parody of the present: our obsession with data and metrics; our suspicion of consumer technology; and our unspoken feeling that there are perhaps too many academic books in the world. Above all else, this chapter seeks to reinforce the importance of books as the carriers of ideas.

This chapter draws attention to the features, values and debates of Practice as Research, arguingfor its approaches, methods and outputs to be considered as equivalent to those used by more traditional humanities scholars, i.e. the ‘academic book’. Indeed, it asks us to rethink our fetishisation of the physical book artefact as the pre-eminent model of publication in academic terms, and suggests we explore and support the development of other forms that might be more relevant to the digital age, and that attempt to break down the walls between theory and practice. It ends with a focus on the video essay form, which has the potential to reshape the subjects of Media and Film Studies in particular.

Market research demonstrates that scholars’ attitudes towards monographs are changing, and that there is appetite for a shorter monograph form. The introduction of mid-length research format Palgrave Pivot in 2012 has proved that such a venture can be successful, and that more flexibility and speed may hold the key to the academic book of the future in humanities and social science research. In this chapter Jenny McCall, Global Head of Humanities at Palgrave Macmillan, and Amy Bourke-Waite, Senior Communications Manager at Palgrave Macmillan, consider the demand for Palgrave Pivot and similar mid-length offerings from academic publishers, the reception they have received from the academic community, and where we might go from here.

Ripping off the physical covers of the ‘book’ and moving swiftly into the digital realm immediately raises a number of issues around form, substance, supply chains, delivery platforms, discoverability and business models. Heated ideological, philosophical, pedagogical, and political debates leave people either exhilarated or exhausted. The meaning of the word ‘book’ itself will never again be confined to that of a physical object to be held, admired, loved, subject to spilt coffee, or burning by dictators. The ‘book’ will be defined more around its function than any of its other characteristics. This chapter discusses some of the factors that need to be understood when pondering the new function of the ‘book’.

Long perceived as a bastion of the academic book, the university press now finds itself operating under a range of business models, in an increasing number of possible locations on campus, and with the measurement of ‘success’ markedly different across host institutions. Yet this study of the underpinning rationale for a growth in university press publishing in the UK, and of the award of major grants to several US presses, highlights that the university press remains a barometer for proposed structural changes to knowledge dissemination and debates around the future of the book in the academy.

In the near future, national libraries could adopt new roles within the national research infrastructure, such as policy co-ordination, development of national and international interoperability standards, and improving the discovery of academic books, in addition to their traditional roles in ensuring long-term access and preservation. Equally, the complexity and resource-intensive nature of these changes, combined with the rising budgetary pressures faced by libraries, will mean that the future role of national libraries in scholarly ecosystems will depend on their capability to innovate and to transform their relationships with researchers, universities and research funders. This chapter considers some generic trends that might influence how national libraries engage with a growing debate about the future of academic books.

The future of the academic book is a strategic engagement issue for librarians. Books might not be stored in or purchased for university libraries; they might not even exist in a physical form. How will academic books be organized and accessed in the future, if they are not in libraries? How will librarians at universities engage academic researchers in strategic conversations about the future of their academic books? This chapter argues that conversations between librarians and academic book authors about the future are more important than ever. It puts the current challenges in context, using data from the Research Excellence Framework and the University of Nottingham library catalogue, identifying the strategic role of librarians in shaping the future of the academic book through strategic engagement.

Academic books can deeply affect the ways that human beings perceive the world and interact with one another, playing an important role in cultural change. Academic libraries help to ensure that their contents are available to inform the thinking of future generations, playing an important role in cultural continuity. This chapter argues that the academic book may evolve into something very different in the future, but that the passion of librarians for ensuring that books in whatever form are made freely available will continue to drive forward innovation and collaboration, even in the face of major social and technological changes.This chapter argues that the academic book may evolve into something very different in the future, but that the passion of librarians for ensuring that books in whatever form are made freely available will continue to drive forward innovation and collaboration, even in the face of major social and technological changes.

A summary of the fiscal relationship between text, readers, publishers, bookshops, and legislation, this chapter argues that it is the economics of the consumer market that will shape the academic book of the future. Suggesting that demand for text intersects across a global marketplace, this chapter predicts a future in which the distinctions between physical and digital text, and Open Access and commercial publication, are so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Case studies from past, current, and future fiscal strategy illuminate the economics of reading, publishing and bookselling online and on the high street, and are used to consider a future where a marketplace governed by personal choice rather than publisher provision will determine textual form.

Universities, lecturers, and students are faced with a plethora of choice when it comes to courseware, choices that both complement and replace the traditional textbook. The future role of university booksellers will be to provide the best discovery, delivery, and evaluation tools to help lecturers and students choose and get the most benefit from their learning resources. Whilst booksellers will continue to offer a retail presence for students, their business model will evolve and become more reliant on services and software revenues from universities.

Campus booksellers with close links to their university play an essential role in supporting the academic activity of students and the research work of staff, as well as the cultural life of the university. This assertion was overwhelmingly supported by feedback from one hundred members of the academic community at Canterbury Christ Church University during a Periodic Departmental Review of Library Services in November 2014. When there is so much emphasis on providing the ultimate student experience — an academic bookshop on campus is a key asset.