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. They do not have the knowledge, resources and capacities to develop new methods of digital publishing and participate in the digital market. 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.