The Academic Book of the Future was a two-year AHRC-funded research project exploring the future of the academic book.
Project activity ended in September 2016, however the legacy is ongoing – including Academic Book Week. This website provides information about the project, its research outputs, and its other activities. The main project report is set to launch in late Spring 2017.
To celebrate the end of the Project as part of the second Academic Book Week (23-28 January 2017) some of the Project’s partners offered their responses to the Project’s progress in this short film. Thanks to all who took part and allowed us to use content, and our enormous gratitude to the talented team at the University of Lincoln’s co_LAB, for putting this film together.
The Academic Book of the Future project was funded by the AHRC in collaboration with the British Library, and looked at how scholarly work in the Arts and Humanities will be produced, read, and preserved in coming years. It explored key questions like “what is an academic book?” “who reads them?”, “what can technology do to help make academic books more accessible?” and “how can we make sure academic books, whether print or electronic, are kept safe, and don’t disappear?”
Run by a core team of 5 people from UCL and King’s College, London, who between them have experience in many of the relevant communities of practice, the Project worked closely with librarians, publishers, booksellers, researchers, and readers across the UK and internationally, and held a host of UK wide workshops and focus groups during 2015-16 to try and get some answers.
Our key event was Academic Book Week (#AcBookWeek) 9-16 November 2015, which was backed by the British Library, the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the ALPSPS and many others.
If you’d like to be involved in Academic Book Week 2017, please see https://acbookweek.com/.
Project Partners
The Academic Book of the Future 