A conference on literacy and publishing in the digital age from 19-21 May.

Download the program here.
The conventional notion of the book, based on centuries of print, has rapidly grown outdated. Meanwhile the capacity to create digital book-like functions and forms is endless. in a double sense the book is coming unbound, both from the bindings of the printed volume and also the boundaries between multimedia content and modes of authorship in a vast, interconnected electronic space. These possibilities may be exciting, but the digital book is left without obvious contours. the entire concept of ‘bookness’ needs reinvention. to do this well, we must go back to the basics. this means not only questioning the future of the book and its institutional and intellectual infrastructures, but also asking what we should retain of the familiar printed volume, even as we embrace the digital future.

Those developing these (sometimes competing) technologies and standards too often ignore perspectives outside of immediate, market-driven concerns. it is therefore critical that cultural forces step in to affect how we design, utilize, and disseminate the book’s future forms. What new models can advance writing, collaborating, distributing, reading and interpreting knowledge? What affordances can affect the formatting and designing of dynamic content? through panel discussions, presentations, and workshops, the unbound book conference brings together academics, designers, writers, librarians, software and hardware developers, and publishers who want to take part in defining their roles within this transformative landscape.
The Unbound Book is an initiative of the CREATE-IT Applied research centre at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, the Book and Digital Media Studies at the University of Leiden, and the Institute of Network Cultures.