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Among the art history editors interviewed, the option of electronic publishing is one that they tend to hold at arm’s length. For some, there are viability concerns about the medium per se, while for others, a digital product is simply less desirable than the book as a vehicle for art history scholarship. More than one editor felt that if their press were to publish digital products, access to such products (clearly perceived to be inferior) would have to be carefully controlled, so as not to damage the press’s reputation.
One source said that her press has not gone into e-publishing because the permissions issues for illustrations are still considered too risky. She argues that there needs to be an industry standard established in order for presses to be able to move in this direction. At the moment, she says, artists rights associations and artists estates have the upper hand regarding the permissions process.
Another source pointed out that the promise of digital publishing as a potential cost-saving measure may not be as great as some believe. He noted that works would still need to be designed and typeset, catalogues would still have to be created, works would still need to be advertised, permissions issues would still need to be worked out, and so on. The only change that going digital would bring is that the books would not need to be printed. While he agreed that, as a practical matter, publishers have to assume that digital publishing will happen, books must still be thought of as needing to be published on pages with covers.
A third source argued that books will not go away, although she could see a triage system evolving that sorts books into two categories: print and digital. But while digital reprinting would probably work okay for books in philosophy, history, economics, and so forth, it would not work well for art history. As she put it, "To digitally reprint works in art history would cheapen [the press’s] name." She does admit, though, that the technology is almost there to make digital books a possibility. She could imagine a subscription-based system, for example, that allows a closed audience to have controlled access to such works. She acknowledges that there would be some permissions issues to be dealt with, but doesn’t feel that they would be insurmountable. The biggest problem is "convincing people this is the way art books are going to be."
Similarly, another source said that while print-on-demand technology currently supports black and white images reasonably well, it has trouble accommodating variant sizes (oblong, e.g.). She said that perhaps there could be an "e-list" at her press for works by younger scholars that could be run from a server within the press that would be password accessible through the press’s web site. The resulting books, though, would be lower in quality and would not be available for sale in bookstores. Echoing what was said by her colleague at another press, she said that going this route "would require that authors change the way they think about the book."
At least one source thinks that day will be a long time coming. He firmly believes that books should be preserved as a medium for art history and they should be of the highest possible quality, "or something important will be lost." As far as he is concerned, "good art history books make people vividly aware of important art works through well-done visuals and illustrations." Illustrations, he emphasizes, are "the key to good art history." As far as e-publishing is concerned, he thinks art history may well be the last discipline to get there.
But for a couple of other sources, there is no time left to wait. "What has to happen is that either the tenure system has to be changed or art history publishers need to go digital," said one source. "Why should publishers who have to deal with markets also have to deal with scholarly monographs?" To underscore the non-marketability of scholarly monographs, she noted that less than 1% of dissertations ever get ordered. Another source, also mindful about the changing economics of scholarly publishing, wondered if now might be the time to start exploring alternative ways of publishing books "because the library market will not come back."
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More about this content | Cite this content | Version history
This work is licensed by Lawrence McGill under a Creative Commons License.
Last edited by Chuck Bearden on Sep 21, 2006 3:11 pm GMT-5.