Publishing Eco-system: International Journal of Publishing Studies

Open Access Policies in Latin America

Giulia Crippa — 2025-05-31

Information policies are the guidelines, regulations, laws and practices that govern the management, access, distribution, use and protection of information within a specific organization, nation or entity to ensure that information is used effectively, safely and ethically, including personal data, digital communications, media and information security. Such policies include regulating access to academic and research information resources. The issue of OA must be considered as a decisive element in terms of social concern, equity in the circulation of knowledge and as an essential element for a more just social development. Current policies assume that, in today's world, individuals are free from collective responsibility for their countries, but this is not true, since individuals are born, live and work in specific places, communities and countries, and most of the world's population lives in the global South. It is therefore necessary to be able to collaborate and improve quality, but it is also necessary to produce in a way that benefits both local communities and the world at large.

Since the late 1990s, Latin America has more than 30 digital journal collections, most of them public. Universities and research centers have invested efforts and resources in implementing these tools, showing a new way of producing and disseminating research results through the digital medium. Information policies have thus favored full-text OA, while the institutions themselves have financed these distribution channels to gain more visibility through more citations for authors, seeking greater impact for their research. Even before the main declarations of the global OA movement were made, the region had already considered the possibility of creating national collections of digital full-text OA journals. According to Latindex data, for every five Ibero-American scientific journals, one is currently available digitally in OA.

Reading on paper and reading on screen: the state of research

Enrico Meglioli — 2025-05-31

Forms of reading have changed many times over the centuries. Today, after the rise of the Internet and with the widespread diffusion of increasingly more affordable and sophisticated digital technologies, we are experiencing a new, radical change in the way we produce and consume written texts, which have in large part moved from the ‘physical’ world of paper to the ‘virtual’ world of digital screens. When the new digital technologies first appeared, the benefits they provided in terms of quantity and quality of information they conveyed in written, visual, audio, and video format spurred many policymakers and leaders in the fields of education and publishing to encourage a complete shift from the paper medium to the digital one. This choice, however, largely underestimated the impact that the reading medium has on the readers’ cognitive behaviours and even neurological structures. New studies have started to shed light on the different mechanisms underlying reading on paper and reading on screen, and their specific features. This paper aims at offering a review of the main lines of research concerning the differences between reading on paper and on screen, and what recommendations can be drawn for teachers and all those involved in the literacy education of the new generations, but also for contemporary readers, who have now the opportunity to access more information and stories and in more formats than ever, but can be disoriented by the variety of reading media, and uncertain about how to take the best out of it.Three will be the main focuses of the review: research interested in showing the different impacts of the reading media at the neurological level; research on the physical and haptic differences between reading on paper and reading on screen; and the results of some of the more comprehensive studies on the impacts of the reading media on comprehension and learning, especially for the young generations of readers.

Man, Computer, and Publishing in the 1980s: 'Digital Humanity' Between Computer Literacy and Mass Informatic Literature.

Angelica Cremascoli — 2025-05-31

The 1980s marked the decade of development for electronic publishing, which initially emerged as the rough product of the convergence of three factors: telematics, which gave rise to new editorial products, databases, and both local and international networks designed to manage the flow of information; the appropriation of telematic concepts and resources by libraries and bookstores; and the automation of key processes related to production and distribution. The computer was the enabling force that allowed these elements to interact within the publishing and cultural context of the time, driving the widespread diffusion of informatics and its integration into language and into reading and writing practices. This article explores the national and international debate surrounding the concept of Computer Literacy, from the moment it became clear that both the economic and cultural spheres were moving toward exponential technological implementation and a progressive domestication of digital tools. In this context, studies and discussions on Computer Literacy — which intensified between 1982 and 1985, and flared up intermittently throughout the 1990s and 2000s — tend to converge around its definitions, applications, and interpretations. They represent both a reaction to and a critical perspective on the transition from a paper-based society, grounded in printed materials, to a paperless one, in which books and newspapers in their traditional formats were increasingly perceived by advocates of the Computer Literacy Credo as obstacles to progress. Furthermore, these studies intersect with the possible redefinition of the roles of writing and reading in an information society, as well as with the sudden emergence of mass-market computer literature, which reached its peak between 1983 and 1987.

A New Perspective on Audibles

Federico Siragusa — 2025-05-31

The contemporary age introduces new challenges in publishing and authorship, amplified by the Internet and its new modes of dissemination. Notable innovations include self-publishing platforms and the digital distribution of books, areas in which Amazon has emerged as a major player through Kindle, the acquisition of Audible, and although briefly, Amazon Books. Particular attention has been drawn to the audiobook La Divine Comédie d'Amélie Nothomb: voyage mythologique des enfers au paradis, distributed by Audible's French subsidiary in February 2021. Created by Laureline Amanieux in collaboration with Amélie Nothomb, this project is notable for its hybrid nature. While audiobooks are traditionally aural transpositions of pre-existing literary works, this creation is an exception. Its uniqueness creates uncertainty even among its authors, who debate whether to define it as a podcast, audiobook, or documentary.

This paper analyzes the multimedia character of this work, which reimagines Dante's Comedy in an innovative format. In particular, it explores whether the audiobook can be seen not merely as a derivative work but as an original creation, challenging the concept of what constitutes a book. The analysis emphasizes the script underpinning the project, which, while allowing room for improvisation in dialogic sequences, is structured around well-defined readings, both monologues and quotations from various works, including Dante's Comedy.

The production of book market statistics in Europe:

Enrico Turrin — 2025-05-31

The Federation of European Publishers (FEP) has been collecting, processing and publishing statistical data on the book market and the publishing sector in Europe for almost twenty years. This is an essential task to illustrate the sector's contribution to European culture and economy and ideally also useful to measure the impact of policies and other exogenous variables.

The main source of data for the FEP is the questionnaire it submits to its members annually. The survey results are analysed and where possible supplemented through other sources, mainly data from national statistical offices. The result is a fairly clear and reliable picture of the value of the book market in Europe in its main dimensions: turnover, titles published.

There are, however, significant difficulties, both with regard to the comprehensiveness and comparability of the information provided by the national associations, and with regard to the usability of the national statistics (and, by extension, those provided by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office). The FEP therefore appeals to the competent authorities to increase their efforts to improve the knowledge of the publishing sector in Europe.

The closure of the Einaudi installment network and its final historical catalog

Marco Menato — 2025-05-31

As of January 1, 2025, the Einaudi installment network, founded by Giulio Einaudi after World War II to enable everyone to build a personal library, has closed. The ‘Punti Einaudi,’ authorized agencies for installment sales, have ceased operations and, where possible, have become independent bookstores while maintaining ties with Mondadori, Einaudi’s owner. Customers with active contracts were able to pay installments until June 2025; afterward, payments will be managed directly by the publisher. This closure marks the end of a unique tradition in the Italian book market, caused by a decline in subscribers-especially young readers-and management issues. The agencies, which offered a vast Einaudi catalog and a unique cultural experience, will lose their role, transforming into more standardized bookstores to compete with large online chains.

Sara Bignotti, Il senso del libro. Filosofia e linguaggi del marketing editoriale, Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2021

Davide Martini — 2025-05-31

Review of: Sara Bignotti, Il senso del libro. Filosofia e linguaggi del marketing editoriale, Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2021.

Marco Fioretti, Norme e contratti per il lavoro editoriale, Milano: Editrice Bibliografica, 2021

Nicola Cavalli — 2025-05-31

Review of: Marco Fioretti, Norme e contratti per il lavoro editoriale, Milano: Editrice Bibliografica, 2021.

Libri senza barriere. Percorsi di editoria accessibile e inclusiva, Pavia: Edizioni Santa Caterina, 2024.

Caterina Morelli — 2025-05-31

Review of Libri senza barriere. Percorsi di editoria accessibile e inclusiva, Pavia: Edizioni Santa Caterina, 2024.

Presentation

Federica Formiga — 2025-05-31

The first issue of 2025, pursuing the line of the magazine, presents papers that look at book publishing in its different forms and modes of expression.