Information, Medium & Society: Twenty-second International Conference on Publishing Studies

Abstract

The “small is beautiful” movement of the 1960s and 1970s suggested the possibility of an intimacy in organizations and this manifesto champions small press is beautiful – a history and origin stories of the soulfulness, expressed through the hands of the publishers, embodied in the book as a type of secular religious relic. They did not intend the reader to experience the two—package and words—separately. They meant the design, distribution, and entire package to find itself intertwined with the words on the page. They sought to create books in which words and package were unalienated from each other. Soulfulness connected to handmade arts and artisanal crafts sought to first eliminate the division of labor and specialization found in industrialization, second to ‘dissolve the distinction between physical and mental labour’, and third to create a model of life unalienated from work. These publishers sought to create books that had inherent value much like the analogous situation of an artist seeking to create something that transcends its mere financial exchange value. The working practices they sought to cultivate saw people as collaborators rather than competitors and saw their connection to nature and natural settings as part of the process. This paper traces a history, a possible origin story, and some exemplars of the small press publishers and their poetic economies of production. This approach necessarily crosses disciplinary boundaries.