The space and place of the bookstore has shifted dramatically over the past fifty years. The traditional physical space of the Indies, chains, market-stalls and superstores now create a common place with virtual stores, eReaders and tablets. This is largely due to digital technologies that have removed problems of distribution and access as well as fundamentally called into question what it is that is being bought and sold and who owns that item being exchanged.
The academic book has always had its own “space”: its own audience, its own distribution networks and its own purposes. Academia depends on the book as a dissemination and teaching medium, yet today many university campuses and towns no longer have bookstores. The academic space of the book has either closed or moved to a new place. This conference will consider what these new places may be, the impact this move has had on readers and booksellers, and the changing relationships that have always developed within the space and place of the book.

Proposals are invited for paper presentations, workshops/interactive sessions, or posters/exhibits addressing books and book selling through one of the following themes:
1. The book as context, container, content, network, object of desire
2. Ecology of the book (ownership, used books, DRM, rights, sharing)
3. The place of the book: the stores (brick and mortar or on-line), the network (social or otherwise), the device.
4. Readers in a digital age

Proposal ideas that extend beyond these thematic areas will also be considered.

Proposals, of no more than 250 words, should be submitted to Dr Eben Muse (e.muse@bangor.ac.uk) and Rebecca Lyons (rebecca.lyons@ucl.ac.uk) by Nov 1st 2015.

This conference is jointly sponsored and organised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council/ British Library funded project, The Academic Book of the Future, and the School of Creative Studies and Media at Bangor University.