[artinfo] Urgent Publishing Toolkit and Publication

[Geert Lovink]

Making Public Presents the Urgent Publishing Toolkit and Publication

What strategies are available to publishers in the cultural and 
research domains to conceive, produce, and position their contents in 
an urgent way? In the two-year research project Making Public 
(2018-2020) conducted by the Institute of Network Cultures at the 
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and partners, which has come 
to a close, methods and prototypes are developed to counter the 
contemporary speedy information sphere in new and different ways.

Starting out from the observation that small-scale publishers often 
experience a trade-off between publishing under time pressure and 
upholding quality standards, we looked into other ways to conceive of 
timely publishing. Experiments with modular publishing, algorithmic 
recommendations, and digital remediation, have led to the development 
of hybrid content formats and new options for positioning 
publications with reading audiences. All of those are available in 
open access in the Urgent Publishing Toolkit.

Central to the project is the concept of urgent publishing. Urgent 
publishing pertains both to timeliness and relevance. The final 
publication of the project, Here and Now? Explorations in Urgent 
Publishing offers an inquiry into urgency in publishing, next to 
presenting desk research and the experiments conducted by the three 
research groups. It develops a situated account of hybrid publishing, 
where authors, editors, publishers, designers, and readers operate 
together. The publication is available in open access, in both 
digital and print formats.

The urgent publishing strategies that the prototypes and methods 
embody and that are described in detail in Here and Now? Explorations 
in Urgent Publishing focus on the following key notions:

Relations between different content modules, that allow for 
multi-linear narratives and other (rhetorical) forms of presenting 
information.
Trust in the network, both of publishers who can benefit from each 
other's platforms and reach, and of readers who are interested in 
in-depth content.
Remediation which allows publications to extend their afterlife and 
find readers by offering them ways to engage directly with materials.
All information can be found on the website of the Institute of 
Network Cultures:

<https://networkcultures.org/makingpublic/>Making Public website

<https://networkcultures.org/makingpublic/2020/05/14/urgent-publishing-toolkit/>Urgent 
Publishing Toolkit

<https://networkcultures.org/makingpublic/urgentpublishing/>Here and 
Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing

Order your free paper copy 
here: <https://networkcultures.org/publications/order-inc-publications/>https://networkcultures.org/publications/order-inc-publications/

Collaborating partners: 1001 Publishers, Amateur Cities, Amsterdam 
University Press, ArtEZ University of the Arts, Hackers & Designers, 
Mind Design, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Open!,

Open Set, Puntpixel, Studio BLT, Valiz, and Willem de Kooning Academy.

The research was supported by Regieorgaan SIA (Taskforce for Applied 
Research), which is part of the Netherlands Organisation for 
Scientific Research (NWO).