5.3 Electronic publishing and the future of the book

Among the art history editors interviewed, the option of electronic publishing is one that they tend to hold atarm’s length. For some, there are viability concerns about the medium per se, while for others, a digital product is simply lessdesirable than the book as a vehicle for art history scholarship. More than one editor felt that if their press were to publishdigital products, access to such products (clearly perceived to be inferior) would have to be carefully controlled, so as not todamage the press’s reputation.

One source said that her press has not gone into e-publishing because the permissions issues for illustrationsare still considered too risky. She argues that there needs to be an industry standard established in order for presses to be able tomove in this direction. At the moment, she says, artists rights associations and artists estates have the upper hand regarding thepermissions process.

Another source pointed out that the promise of digital publishing as a potential cost-saving measure may not be asgreat 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 goingdigital would bring is that the books would not need to be printed. While he agreed that, as a practical matter, publishers have toassume 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 sortsbooks 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 historywould cheapen [the press’s] name." She does admit, though, that thetechnology is almost there to make digital books a possibility. She could imagine a subscription-based system, for example, that allowsa closed audience to have controlled access to such works. She acknowledges that there would be some permissions issues to bedealt with, but doesn’t feel that they would be insurmountable. The biggest problem is "convincing people this is the way art books aregoing to be."

Similarly, another source said that while print-on-demand technology currently supports black and whiteimages reasonably well, it has trouble accommodating variant sizes (oblong, e.g.). She said that perhaps there could be an "e-list" ather press for works by younger scholars that could be run from a server within the press that would be password accessible throughthe 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 waythey think about the book."

At least one source thinks that day will be a long time coming. He firmly believes that books should be preservedas a medium for art history and they should be of the highest possible quality, "or something important will be lost." As far ashe is concerned, "good art history books make people vividly aware of important art works through well-done visuals andillustrations." Illustrations, he emphasizes, are "the key to good art history." As far as e-publishing is concerned, he thinks arthistory 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 tenuresystem has to be changed or art history publishers need to go digital," said one source. "Why should publishers who have to dealwith markets also have to deal with scholarly monographs?" To underscore the non-marketability of scholarly monographs, she notedthat less than 1% of dissertations ever get ordered. Another source, also mindful about the changing economics of scholarlypublishing, wondered if now might be the time to start exploring alternative ways of publishing books "because the library marketwill not come back."