Introduction

During the past few years, the development of digital reading contents for devices such as tablets, e-readers, and smartphones has challenged the traditional ecosystem of publishing, has questioned the traditional practices of reading, and has triggered a wave of innovations and experimentations among publishers and their new technological partners.

In search of new formats, designs, and business models, e-books currently propose a balance between traditional forms influenced by the paper book and an integration of the interactive and multimedia potential of the digital in order to “enhance” the experience of reading. E-books challenge publishers, librarians, authors, designers, and readers and their traditional relation to the “book”. They draw a line where technology, innovation, and creation interfere with our imaginations on reading and our traditional representations of the book.

This handbook of research will consider global aspects such as the history of e-books, new publishing models, marketing methods, economical models, transformation of the publishing workflow, and the new role of libraries and digital libraries, from different international perspectives.

It will also focus on design, development, innovation, practices, uses, research, and creative projects. The forms of e-books and enhanced e-books can be examined in terms of navigation paths, page layout, and content designs and will include semiotic, aesthetic, and literary approaches.  What is the future of the page, the index, the table of contents, and the traditional “navigation” tools used in the paper book? What kind of features does an enhanced e-book provide between interaction, navigation, analyzing tools, audio, active images, animated content elements, dictionary, social sharing, annotation functions, hyperlinks? What kind of gestures are the readers supposed to mobilize? How publishers and creators try to figure out and integrate various multimedia and interactive features to create a new form of digital reading?

The emerging reading practices of digital books will be analyzed through empirical studies. How do e-books affect the reading process? Do their numerous features act as mere distractions that pull the reader out of the "reading" process? What kind of attention, pleasure, engagement, comprehension, and memorization might be mobilized? How can we minimize disruptions to the reading flow while providing relevant interactive content? Various types of reading will be explored in different educational or entertainment related scenarios. Scientific and academic books as well as fictions and novels, which rely on immersive graphics or embedded soundtrack, can be analyzed. A particular attention will be given to the methodology used to observe the reader experience.

Besides, this handbook aims at presenting some innovative design approaches involving the use of multimedia development tools and co-design leaded experiences.

Authors and designers, from various fields, are invited to show how they explore new formats from different perspectives, coming from printed literature or from digital born literature. What kind of forms and figures can help to improve the readers' engagement and the comprehension of the contents? What tools do authors and publishers use? How can technology support creativity?

Objective

The overall objectives and missions are to capitalize on the latest and emerging advances on this topic by offering a state of the art compilation of research that can be disseminated in the international community. This handbook has the clear intention to develop and reinforce the importance of research in this crucial area by clarifying methodologies and giving future directions: few books have gathered researchers and their works on the subject showing experimentations and results on practices regarding e-books.

Recommended Topics

• Overview on e-books and their history from different perspective countries (America, Europe, Africa, etc.)
• E-books publishing models and policies (business models, agile publishing, cultural issues, future trends in the market, selection and acquisition of e-books, marketing e-books, legal issues, archiving, curation, accessibility, digital libraries, digital libraries)
• Transformation of the traditional workflow
• Imaginations of publishers, authors, and readers related to e-books and enhanced e-books
• Designing and developing e-books (evolution of formats, page layout, navigation tools, interface design, content representation, search architecture, datamining, indexing, browsing)
• New tools, technology, and content management for publishing (authoring tools, platforms, software, standardization, interoperability, metadata, editorial and production workflow)
• Enhanced e-books (categorization, role of hypertext and interactivity, use of media in the reading context, writing, narration, storytelling, gamelike interactivity, augmented reality, gamified books, social medias)
• Scenario of use in various fields (children, adults, specific user communities, fiction and non fiction, academic, scientific, textbook, technical documentation, graphic novels, comics…) and contexts  (library, private reading, university…)
• Empirical studies on digital reading (readers engagement, comprehension reading, user experience and usability, reader response theory)
• Integration of e-books in e-learning
• Future of digital publishing
• Digital literature and e-books: links, experimentations (digital born fiction, research and creation projects, new art forms exploring creative possibilities, innovation), close readings

Submission Procedure

Publisher

• Dr. Alexandra Saemmer (University Paris 8, Vincennes-Saint-Denis, France, Associate Professor)
• Nolwenn Tréhondart (University of Paris 8, France, Publishing Specialist and Research Engineer at Labex Arts-H2H)
• Dr. Madjid Ihadjadene (University Paris 8, Vincennes-Saint-Denis, France, Full Professor)
  

Important Dates

Inquiries

Dr. Alexandra Saemmer

Associate Professor, Information and Documentation Science
University of Paris 8, Vincennes-Saint-Denis, 2 rue de la Liberté, 93100 Saint-Denis, France

Tel.: 00 (33) 1 49 40 64 17

E-mail: alexandra.saemmer@univ-paris8.fr

With copy to:
nolwenn.trehondart@gmail.com
madjid.ihadjadene@univ-paris8.fr