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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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A recent TVO episode of the Agenda on the Future of Reading brought a panel of people together to worry and argue about whether the book as an object is going to disappear and (some of them) to advocate for e-readers and the potentials of reading in a networked environment. I got itchy and squirmy. Nobody was talking about libraries, nobody was talking about access to information, nor about the fact that critical inquiry is not just for those with post secondary degrees and money for electronic gee-gaws. Publishers are filters, they receive submissions and choose manuscripts based on their own criteria. Whether or not the reader agrees with the publisher's criteria, the system is one in which the reader expects to have their own assumptions challenged. Questioning, evaluating, participating, questioning...these are the processes of shared cultural activity, and they ought to be available to everyone. Who cares if it happens on paper or on a screen? What matters is whether or not the base of participants is broad enough that the challenges of diversity help keep things evolving. And that means doing more than just carving culture up into a jumble of isolated self-perpetuating, self-affirming niche communities.
Bob Stein had an interesting thing to say, but I wonder what he means by "successful" and I wonder what he means by "community."
"The reason why I disagree completely about the idea that branding of publishers is on the way out is that I think that the the successful publishers of the future are going to be those that understand how to build a community around an author and her work and her readers."
