Gary Hall is a cultural and media theorist who has written many books on these subjects. He is a professor of Media and Performing Arts at Conventry University (UK) and co-founder of Open Humanities Press.

Gary Hall @ The Unbound Book Conference photo cc by-sa Sebastiaan ter Burg

Gary Hall started his talk which was part of the session The Unbound Book with the Oxford dictionary definition of the word ‘book’. He explained that the definition of a book as pages fastened together is now outdated because of new developments such as augmented reality. The ‘book’ is now disrupted and dislocated. He argued that if the book has a future it is in unbound form, the book must be transformed to keep it alive. However this does not mean that conventional definitions of the book are discarded, they are still valid.

The main argument of Gary Hall is that books have always been liquid and living. Electronic publishing has helped to make us aware of this. He mentioned the examples of the Bible and Shakespeare’s first folio to prove this point. Gary Hall argues that a book should be free, however this is currently not the case. Not only is the book bound between two covers, it is also legally bound. Here Gary Hall quoted McKenzie Wark:

“Information wants to be free but is everywhere in chains.”

Hall proposes as a solution the ‘academic gift economy’ in which research is circulated for free. The problem is that publishers own the rights of published works therefore works can’t be published in Open Access. He mentions that it is difficult to find publishers who allow authors to self-archive their articles. Publishing is changing because of new technological developments. These developments also change the idea of the book itself. Gary Hall quotes Graham Harman who argues that in a few years everyone will be able to publish a book in minutes. This means that publishing is destined to become vanity publishing. Hall uses Open Notebook to make his articles freely available in real-time. Readers can make contributions to his chapters before the book is bound by publishers. He explains how Open Humanities Press has been exploring the idea of liquid books. It is possible to publish books as a Wiki which makes it possible for readers to rewrite and comment. In this model the book is not fixed but rather it is fluid, it can be updated, reordered, reimagined. It is a work in progress, a work in an ongoing stage. Gary explains that in this way the book can be made collaboratively and authors can contribute anonymously.

Hall explains that in the future there will be different kinds of publishing. To illustrate this he mentions some examples such as research articles which embed video which Elsevier calls ‘the article of the future’. Another new development in publishing is the Kindle Single which is longer than a magazine article and shorter than a novel. He also mentioned the Remixthebook project which contains a remix of American sentences.

Gary Hall ended his talk with the conclusion that books have always been fluid and that because of electronic publishing, certain questions are raised such as: What is a book? And what is an author? In his opinion these questions should have been brought up earlier.

Gary Hall is a Professor of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University, UK. He is author of Digitize This Book! The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now (2008) and Culture in Bits (2002), and co-editor of New Cultural Studies (2006) and Experimenting: Essays With Samuel Weber (2007). His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Angelaki, Cultural Politics, Cultural Studies, and The Oxford Literary Review.

Gary Hall Photographed by Sebastiaan ter Burg at the Unbound Book Conference.

In the ‘Digital Enclosures’ workshop, the panel presented their respective stances on the questions of ‘open access’, copyright laws and business models, in relation to e-books.

Gary Hall explained how the impetus for open access is due to the fact that the scholarly model of publishing is no longer working effectively for publishers. This is largely due to the fact that conventions of academic publishing have been taken over by media conglomerates where the majority of their energies go to music and other media that will generate more profit. Academic writing therefore must sell and be seen as a commodity in order to ensure its success and backing by conglomerates.

Hall mentions various business models for publishing. In the first example, for-profit publishers concentrate mostly on sales. In this case, they tend to sell textbooks, a hot commodity for students which the publishers know will sell because of course requirements. Scholarly-led open access publishing is when the scholar takes the means of production into their own hands. They need not be merely profit oriented. Finally, the third model is when various scholars come together and perform all tasks related to the text. External funding from various sources subsidizes business costs while still ensuring open access books. One of the benefits of this model is the high level of production and editorial standards in the process.

In regard to the question of copyright, Hall states that the main source of funding is from institutions paying employee salaries. Scholars are generally happy to give work away open access. What this means though is that open access cannot be translated to other industries or areas of society such as the Culture Industries. These producers/ creators must be compensated for their work in order for business to thrive. Ultimately, copyright is good for corporations. However many new technologies require new and specific copyright laws (evident when looking at internet piracy).

Is there an economic model for sustainable, long term, open access policy in the humanities? Hall concludes that we don’t know but we must address this not as an all-encompassing “one size fits all, magic bullet answer”. Hall concludes that perhaps digital culture may provide us with an opportunity to think differently about these issues, away from our currently understood notions of individualism and property.

For more info on Gary Hall’s work and research, please visit http://www.garyhall.info/