Online Lightening Talks
Blurring the Lines: Authors and Publishers in the Small Press Sector in Australia
Online Lightning Talk Sophie Masson
The small-press book publishing sector is rising in importance within the wider publishing industry in Australia, in line with a similar trend internationally. Driven partly by big-publisher contractions, as well as lower entry cost due to technological innovation, especially in digital file creation and printing, contemporary small-press publishing in Australia is offering new and diverse opportunities for authors across all genres. This trend has seen titles published by small press recently featuring in substantial numbers in prestigious literary prizes, including the Miles Franklin Awards, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, the Stella Awards, and the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards. Sales have also risen significantly, and small press titles are frequently reviewed in major newspapers and magazines, a big change from just a few years ago. In small-press publishing, the lines between author and publisher are often less clear than in the publishing sectors dominated by multinationals and large independents. Not only is the author-publisher relationship closer and more personal, but some small press publishers are directed by professional authors, who must negotiate new social spaces within the traditional binaries of business and art. Based on a series of interviews with authors and publishers, this paper examines the impact of the blurring of lines on publishing practice and professional relationships, giving an insight into an intriguing aspect of the contemporary publishing industry in Australia. The author is an established writer, director of a small press, and currently undertaking a PHD in Creative Practice at the University of New England.
Removing Barriers to Access of Historical Serialized Fiction: A Potential Collaboration between Libraries and University Presses
Online Lightning Talk Eric Willey, Jean B. MacDonald
Scholars face numerous barriers in accessing works of serial literature published in historical newspapers. Newspaper itself is difficult to preserve, microfilm presents other barriers to use, and library catalogers rarely provide direct access points to individual articles in serials. This study discusses these difficulties and outlines how a collaboration between libraries and university presses could overcome many of these barriers, making these publications readily available to scholars and readers. Subject librarians have the expertise to identify likely sources and useful works and authors, and university presses have experience creating Open Educational Resources and promoting them to the academic community. The reissuance of serialized works in book form would allow catalogers to provide direct access to the works through bibliographic records and unique identifiers for authors, allowing for easier discovery in library catalogs. Ultimately, such projects could represent an additional facet to collaborations between libraries and university presses that would benefit scholars and help promote the use of serialized novels and similar works.
The Comparability of the Definitions and the Measurements of Legibility and Readability in Instructional Text Design Research: An Integrative Review
Online Lightning Talk Helen Hendaria Kamandhari
The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the comparability of the definitions and the measurements of legibility and readability across eighty-three journal articles, one thesis, and three dissertations (eighty-seven sources in total). Mixed methods in this integrative review were used to investigate the definitions and the measurements of these two terminologies. The findings of the study showed that the definitions of legibility were present in thirteen journal articles and four theses/dissertations (seventeen sources in total). Legibility was identified in fifty-one sources and described in five sources. The measurement of legibility was found in twenty-four sources (twenty journal articles and four theses/dissertations). The other terminology, readability, was defined in nine journal articles and four theses/dissertations (thirteen sources in total). Readability was identified in twenty-eight sources and described in six sources (all of which came from the journal articles). The measurement of readability was observed in fifteen sources (thirteen journal articles and two theses/dissertations). Though the definitions are present in a total of thirty sources (seventeen sources for legibility and thirteen sources for readability), the consistency of the definitions is not evident. The definitions of legibility and readability are frequently confused for one another in the sources. In addition, the measurements of legibility and readability are not always based on the consistent use of instruments or measures. Thus, in order that comparability can be conducted from one study to another, these two terminologies should be defined and measured on similar bases.
Mapping Modernities: Networks of Translation in Latin American and European Little Magazines
Online Lightning Talk Emily Mc Ginn
This project uses network analysis to expand the modernist literary canon beyond an anglo-centric perspective. It graphs the data extracted from Sturgis E Leavitt's 1960 index Revistas hispanoamericanas: Indice bibliografico 1843-1935 alongside the data from the Modernist Journals Project to examine the routes of intellectual exchange. The relations among hundreds of contributors to these periodicals, trace a plurality of simultaneous modernities larger than any single language or nation. Using two datasets in different languages also exposes the bias toward English not only in the literary canon, but also in the tools of the digital humanities.
