Part 3: After the Break
Week 1
Monday, Feb 27 (MORNING class) – History of Digital Media
Perspectives on how we got to this point, and an examination of some key computing paradigms.
Readings:
J.C.R. Licklider & Robert Taylor. 1968. “Computer as a Communication Device” Science and Technology. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.34.4812&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Chloë)
Alan C. Kay & Adele Goldberg. 1977. “Personal Dynamic Media.” http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf (Gabby)
John W. Maxwell. 2011. “Early Unix Culture at Coach House Press.” (Julia)
Richard Stallman. 1997. “The Right to Read.” Communications of the ACM 40 (2). (Sara)http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html (Sara)
Wednesday, Feb 29 – Rethinking Copyright & Open Culture
The Internet has spawned some serious responses to the problem of copyright in the digital age. They are but mere beginnings…
Readings:
Yochai Benkler. 2002. “Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm.” Yale Law Journal 112. http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html (Heather)
Creative Commons project. http://creativecommons.org/
John Maxwell. (forthcoming). “Resisting Enclosure: Licences, Authorship, and the Commons.” in Dynamic Fair Dealing, Wershler-Henry & Coombe, eds. http://tkbr.ccsp.sfu.ca/research/papers/resisting-enclosure/
(Caelin and Stacey on CC pro/con)
Ted Striphas. 2011. “The Abuses of Literacy: Amazon Kindle and the Right to Read.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7 (3). (Kim) http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14791420.2010.504597
Week 2
Monday, Mar 5 – Information Architectures
Information Architecture has emerged as the professionalization of information design on the web. We take a view from 30,000 feet, at the field, its presumptions, and perspectives on how we think about “content.”
Readings:
Patrick Kennedy. 2007. “The Many Faces of Information Architecture.” Step Two Designs. http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_iafaces/index.html (Diane)
Corey Vilhauer. 2011. “A Content Methodology Primer” in Contents issue #1. http://contentsmagazine.com/articles/a-content-methodology-primer/ (Kristin)
Wednesday, Mar 7 – The ROI of XML (with Hugh McGuire)
John is in Toronto for Booknet Canada’s Tech Forum, speaking on “The ROI of XML” with Hugh McGuire of Pressbooks. This will be live streamed, we hope.
Readings:
John W Maxwell & Kathleen Fraser. 2010. “Traversing the Book of MPub: An Agile, Web-first Publishing Model.” Journal of Electronic Publishing. 13 (3).
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0013.303
Week 3
Monday, Mar 12 – Introduction to Digital Humanities
From a parallel universe nearby…
Readings:
Alan Galey. 2010. “Mechanick Exercises: The Question of Technical Competence in Digital Scholarly Editing.” in Electronic Publishing: Politics and Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriel Egan. Arizona: Iter Inc./ACMRS. http://individual.utoronto.ca/alangaley/files/publications/Galey_Mechanick.pdf (Heidi)
Willard McCarty. 2004. “Modeling: A Study in Words and Meanings” in A Companion to Digital Humanities. ed. by Schreibman, Siemens, & Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell. (Rebecca)
Wednesday, March 14 – e-Reading Futures
Some deep thought about how we read.
Readings:
Sam Harris. 2011. “The Future of the Book.” Sam Harris: The Blog.http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-future-of-the-book/ (Jenn)
Keep, McLaughlin, & Parmar. 1995. The Electronic Labyrinth.
http://elab.eserver.org/elab.html (Angela)
Craig Mod. 2011. “Designing Books in the Digital Age.” in Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto. ed. by Hugh McGuire & Brian O’Leary. http://book.pressbooks.com/chapter/2-book-design-in-the-digital-age-craig-mod (Kim)
Week 4
Monday, Mar 19 – Data and Databases
The basic nuts and bolts of practical data management, from dumb old Excel sheets to SQL and relational databases.
Readings:
Stephen Ramsay. 2004. “Databases” in A Companion to Digital Humanities. ed. by Schreibman, Siemens, & Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405103213/9781405103213.xml&chunk.id=ss1-3-3&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ss1-3-3&brand=9781405103213_brand (Heidi)
Wednesday, Mar 21 – BookNet & Sales Data
With Noah Genner from Booknet Canada
Readings:
Booknet Canada website. http://www.booknetcanada.ca
Week 5
Monday, Mar 26 — Monique Trottier
Readings: TBA
Wednesday, Mar 28 – Publishing in the Future
Peter Brantley. 2011. “At Close of Day: The Library Alternative.” PWxyz. Dec 5, 2011.http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/?p=8462#more-8462(Diane)
Peter Armstrong. 2011. “The Lean Publishing Manifesto.” (Dennis) LeanPub. http://leanpub.com/manifesto
Part 1 – September
This was what we covered in 4 sessions in Sept 2011.
Week 1
Friday, Sept 9 – The Digital Revolution: A Sense of Scale
What right do publishers have to claim that the future still belongs to them? We consider the big picture on the digital revolution, based on some fascinating numbers published recently. b/w TKBR & Writing Online
Readings:
Mary Meeker et al. 2010. “Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask & Answer.” Morgan Stanley Research. Presentation from O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit (Nov 2010). http://www.web2summit.com/web2010/public/schedule/detail/15368
Denis G. Pelli & Charles Bigelow. 2009. “A Writing Revolution.” Seed Magazine.http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/a_writing_revolution/
Clay Shirky. 2010. “The Collapse of Complex Business Models.”http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/
Sara Lloyd. 2008 “A Book Publisher’s Manifesto for the 21st Century.” The Digitalist (Pan MacMillan), http://thedigitalist.net/?p=155
Week 2
Friday, Sept 16 – Foundations: How the Web Works
A crash course in the technology that makes the WWW work—and by extension, ebooks and related digital publication formats. b/w Living in the Cloud: Practical strategies for 2011.
Readings:
JMax on Web Mechanics
Christoph Niemann et al. 2010. “20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web.” Google Chrome Team. http://www.20thingsilearned.com/en-US/home
Carolyn McNeillie, 2011. “An Introduction to HTML and CSS for EPUB” Ebound Canada. http://prezi.com/1jest0cxt2hp/an-introduction-to-html-and-css-for-epub
Bert Bos. “CSS Tutorial: Starting with HTML + CSS.” W3C.http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/011/firstcss
Chapter 2 from Håkon Lie & Bert Bos. 1999. Cascading Style Sheets, designing for the Web, (2nd ed.) http://www.w3.org/Style/LieBos2e/enter/
Week 3
Friday, Sept 23 – Experience Design/Interaction Design
with guest Haig Armen from Emily Carr U. & Lift Studios
Week 4
Friday, Sept 30 – Search Engines, Web Metrics, & Optimization Strategies
Interactions online are all based on discrete, trackable actions, which means audiences and behaviour can be tracked and analyzed to unprecedented depths. This class covers the basics of how Google and other engines work; how web traffic is measured and analyzed; how “search marketing” works in response to this b/wPublishers’ Data & Booksellers’ Data
Readings:
Nancy Blachman and Jerry Peek. 2007. GoogleGuide: How Google Works.http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html
Booknet Canada website. http://www.booknetcanada.ca/
Canadian Bookshelf. http://canadianbookshelf.com/
Kristen Hilderman. 2011. “Life After Print: Revising the Editorial Strategy in Magazine Publishing.” Un-’published’ MPub Report.
Part 2 – January
Week 1
Monday, Jan 9, 2012 – On Publishing and Literature
The Internet and digital media present the biggest challenges to publishing since the advent of the alphabet. Taking publishing out of its traditional context as an industrial manufacturing business, we confront the bigger social and cultural issues that frame its existence and future.
Readings:
Virginia Woolf. 1928. A Room of One’s Own.
Matt Runkle interview with Richard Nash. Aug 25, 2011. “Revaluing the Book.”http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/richard_nash_cursor_red_lemonade_book_publishing_business.php
Wednesday, Jan 11 – The Internet Business Model
Google, Apple, and Amazon have shown themselves to be masters of the new economy, operating at a scale and with a set of rules unimaginable a generation ago.
Readings:
Douglas Rushkoff. 2010 “Chapter V: Scale” in Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.OR Books. ch 5 (Caelin)
Chris Anderson. 2004. “The Long Tail.” Wired 12.10 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html(Stacey)
Mike Shatzkin. 2011. “Publishing is Living in a World Not of its Own Making.” The Shatzkin Files.http://www.idealog.com/blog/publishing-is-living-in-a-world-not-of-its-own-making
Jonathan Zittrain. 2009. “Minds for Sale.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3h-rae3uo
Week 2
Monday, Jan 16 - Web-native forms and genres
Rather than looking at the Internet as something that has happened to the publishing industry, we shift perspective and look at some of the Web and the Net on their own terms, as social and institutional phenomena of their own.
Readings:
Jon Sobel et al. 2011. “Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2011.”http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2011-introduction/ (Kristin)
ch. 3 from Kathleen Fitzpatrick. 2011. Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. NYU Press. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/plannedobsolescence/ (Megan)
Andrew Rashbass. 2011. “Lean Back 2.0″ Slideshare/The Economist Group. http://www.slideshare.net/emmaturner/lean-back-media-the-shock-of-the-old
Wednesday, Jan 18 – Web-native forms and genres, part II
Is contemporary self-publishing a web-based model? What can publishers learn from webcomix? What will happen to the open Internet? We continue…
Readings:
Dani Farmer. 2011. “Kapow! Bam! Dani! How Digital Could Save the Comic Book Industry… Maybe.” PUB802/2011. http://tkbr.ccsp.sfu.ca/pub802/notes/kapow-bam-dani/ (Ariane)
Yochai Bencher. 2011/forthcoming. “A Free Irresponsible Press: Wikileaks and the Battle Over the Soul of the Networked Fourth Estate.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wikileaks_current.pdf (Angela)
Week 3
Monday, Jan 23 – Copyright Challenged
An examination of a three-hundred year-old institution; is it essential to publishing? Is it necessary? Is it doomed?
Readings:
Carla Hesse. 2002. “The Rise of Intellectual Property 700 BC–AD2010: An Idea in the Balance.” DaedelusSpring 2002. http://www.amacad.org/publications/spring2002/hesse.pdf (Rebecca)
James Grimmelmann. 2011. “Who Speaks for Copyright Holders?” The Laboratorium.http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/12/30/who_speaks_for_copyright_owners (Dennis)
O’Reilly, Tim. 2002. “Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution.” OpenP2P Conference 2002. http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html(Gabby)
Brian O’Leary. 2010. “The Walls We Build Up.” Magellan Media. http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/the_walls_we_build_up
James Boyle. 2008. The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. Yale University Press. http://www.thepublicdomain.org/download/
Wednesday, Jan 25 – Audiences & Participatory Media
Beyond technics… the social and cultural facets of the digital world. If we are in the post-mass age, how do people congregate around ideas and culture? We discuss Twitter with Megan.
Reading: Clay Shirky. 2010. Cognitive Surplus. chapter 1. (Lauren) (Ariane)
Week 4
Monday, Jan 30 – Foundations: XML
The case for XML is based on an old idea: the separation of presentation from content. How has this strategy been used over the years, and why has does it still elude us most of the time?
Readings:
Alschuler, Liora. ABCD…SGML. A User’s Guide to Structured Information. International Thomson Computer Press. Boston: 1995. (Heather)
Simon St.Laurent. 2001. XML A Primer, 3rd Edition, M&T Books. (Chloë)
Wed, Feb 1 - Content Management Systems / WordPress
Some perspective on how the real world of Internet publishing works.
Reading: John Maxwell. (forthcoming). “Open Web Architectures…” AModern. (Sara)
