New forms and media, anyone?

Patrick Murray-John
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:19:28 +0000
General

Especially given the mix of publishing and library types that a few people have already mentioned, I’d like to see if this question has legs:

What are we publishing/putting on our shelves, and are they the right things?

In part, I’m thinking here of Kindle Singles, which seem to take advantage of new technologies to aim for a form that’s not quite book form. Hacking the Academy and other awesomeness from Univ. of Michigan Press (hi Shana!) and others are also poking around the question of new and different kinds of things to publish.

So, anyone want to tackle the question of whether libraries could better serve their visitors with things other than books and journal subscriptions? What are those things, and why aren’t they there? What might need to happen to get more publishers (or others!) publishing these mystical, unicorn-like things?

(Or is this already happening, and I’m just in the dark about it? )