Never Mind the Web
1st Edition
Here Comes the Book
Description
This key book examines the role of the printed book in contemporary societies, its demographics and its relation to the other media. It analyzes the differences among various national book industries throughout Europe and the USA, and the reasons and impact of the differences. Both the effect of digital technologies and the reasons why e-books did not substitute the printed book, as predicted in mid-nineties, are explored.
Key Features
- A comprehensive overview of the diversities and similarities that exist among various national book industries and among various publishing fields throughout the developed world
- Analyses the development of all book professions (librarians + booksellers + publishers)
- Builds a link between research methodologies used in book history and on contemporary publishing research
Readership
Publishing professionals, at all managerial and supervisory levels, and students of LIS, publishing studies and media studies at undergraduate and postgraduate level
Table of Contents
Introduction; The book: this charming old lady; Printing and the birth of modernity; The European and American book markets; Social context of the book; An anorexic dachshund with a long tail; The e-book is a paper tiger.
Details
- No. of pages:
- 204
- Language:
- English
- Copyright:
- © Chandos Publishing 2008
- Published:
- 30th September 2008
- Imprint:
- Chandos Publishing
- eBook ISBN:
- 9781780632162
- Hardcover ISBN:
- 9781843344063
- Paperback ISBN:
- 9781843344056
About the Author
Miha Kovac
Before joining academia, Dr Miha Kovac was editorial director of Mladinska knjiga, the biggest publishing house in South-East Europe. Dr Kovac lectures at the Department for Library and Information Science and Book Studies, School of Arts, University of Ljubljana. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford Brookes Centre for Publishing Studies and the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the Soros Foundation in various East-European countries. In 2005, he also became editor in chief of the Slovene edition of National Geographic Magazine.
Affiliations and Expertise
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Reviews
...enjoy this intelligent, proactive book for yourself., Springer Publishing Res. Quarterly
…this book is well worth reading and forms a valuable counterweight to much of the rapid tepid, conformist LIS literature., Library Review
Summarises effectively the intellectual development made possible by printing, and, in a useful comparison, shows how digital technology is causing a similar contemporary rupture both to the established printing industry, and to the world at large., The Electronic Library