Tracy's Ideas

My ideas for the six sections would revolve around the life of print.

The first four are similar to other people who want to look at Darnton's cycle.

1) Creation/Creators
           This section works off of others posts. It can be about the tools used for the creation of books (the change from handwritten, to typewriter, to word processor). The symbolic value of different authors can be explored including authors of books, journalists vs. bloggers, and academics who publish in traditional print journals vs open source journals.

2) Production
           What do changes in how materials are published mean for the print industry?  Do publishers play as important of a role with the advent of POD services and ePublishing.We could also look into the chain of production (I like the graphic from A.T. Kearney's website here.) There could also be a discussion of economics in this area.

3) Dissemination
          How are people obtaining their media? How will it change as readers become more inundated in the digital world? How does the digital divide play in? What roles does the language play in the dissemination formation of the item? How will sellers of digital materials follow, or abandon, traditional selling models.

4) Reception
           How have websites like LibraryThing, Novelist, booksellers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble and social media play in the reception of print? How does reception/social media affect how the next edition or update, changed? 
         
5) Case Study 1: Changes in Economics
           What are the values of books? I think it would be great to focus in particular, on libraries and other large print purchasers in this section. It is important, especially from the education perspective of this books, that digital copies are leased, not owned, and that institutions, such as libraries and universities, have a limited use rules which are not applied to print materials (ie, eBooks are loaned for 28 days, then the library has to re-purchase the rights to the book). It would also be good to look at the intersection of different types of economies, such as the paper and education industry, and how they will be effected by the changes in the print industry.

6) Case Study 2: Changes in Manifestations
          I really want to look into the differences between physically printed items and digitally printed items. There have been several studies about how "born digital" items differ from print born items. This is especially pertinent in digital-first comic books. The format, design, and interactivity is inherently different. Marvel admits that "digital innovation not only gives added value to print comics, but also brings a delivers an entirely new reading experience" (website article here.) Because of the stark changes in the print and digital versions of comics, including ads vs. no adds, interactive content, print/digital hybrids with AR Codes, and born digital comics makes comics a good case study.