Conference on Publishing in India: Challenges and Opportunities

Conference on Publishing in India: Challenges and Opportunities
17-18 January 2011
Organized by Bharat Ratna Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi

Theme

Publishing lies at the heart of literacy, knowledge, and enlightenment for any society. With its mandate for promoting social enrichment Bharat Ratna Dr B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi naturally has a keen interest in contributing towards publishing in India. To begin with it would like to initiate an academic programme on publishing at the University. The challenge lies in making sense out of the turbulence in the publishing industry worldwide, and searching for new answers. It also lies in harnessing technology to produce essential books – whether on paper or on the computer screen – at a cost that is within the reach of the poorest in our society, who continue to number in millions. There is also the challenge of making publishing in India's various languages strong and sustainable. These are industry-wide challenges, not just for AUD. The collective challenge is to raise publishing in the country to a threshold where India becomes an attractive destination not just because of its low labor costs, but because of the innovative ideas born in creative minds here. It is with the goal of nurturing such creative minds that AUD seeks to enter the field of publishing studies. The University plans to begin this journey by hosting a conference titled 'Publishing in India: Challenges and Opportunities' on 17-18 January, 2011.

Focal Areas

This conference would be the first initiative of AUD in this field and will address critical issues like:

• New Age of Publishing: evolving structures, demands, and opportunities
• Scholarly publishing: best practices in acquisitions, evaluations, enhancement, and marketing
• The Designer as author: the role of book design in communication
• Editing in the current and future publishing industry in India
• 'Publishing' activities in the periphery
• New technology and publishing: The worlds of Amazon's 'Kindle', Apple's 'iPad' and Google
• University-based Publishing Studies program: challenges, models
• Design and staffing of short-term programs for publishing professionals

The Conference would consist of presentations on these issues by leading practitioners from the publishing industry as well as academicians. Each of these presentations would be followed by discussions.

Participants

The Conference seeks to touch upon a wide variety of areas related to publishing and therefore would be of interest to diverse group of people like

• Practitioners in the field of publishing in English and in regional languages.
• Academics in the Humanities and Social Sciences interested in understanding how their respective fields interact with the world of publishing.
• Information Technology specialists already involved in publishing-related activities, or are interested in possible areas of interface.
• The conference is likely to bring together around 40 people.

Partners

As of now one of the partners for the Conference is the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, at Simon Fraser Universtiy, Vancouver, Canada. Their representation will include Dr. Rowland Lorimer, Director, Master of Publishing Program and Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University, and Editor, Scholarly and Research Communication.

Participation

If you are interested in attending the conference, please submit a short statement of interest (about 300 words) and a brief CV to conference.aud@gmail.com by 10 December 2010. The language of the Conference will be English.

Further Details