Reviewed by Penny Holliday

The title alone of Digitize this Book! conveys something of the energy and sense of urgency infusing Gary Hall’s text on why and how open access publishing is of great benefit to the humanities, and in particular cultural studies. As Peter Singer is to philosophy, and Tim Flannery is to the environment, Gary Hall is to open access publishing. You ‘dear reader’ (88) and other fellow ‘knowledgedroppers’ (45) are challenged by Hall to consider how online practices that many of us more commonly associate with the music industry, can be successfully applied to the products produced by the humanities.

‘What would it be like’ asks Hall, ‘if it were possible to have an academic equivalent to the peer-to-peer file sharing practices associated with Napster, eMule and Torrent?’ (44). Imagine compiling your own textbook free of charge with all content relevant to your purpose. Imagine the increased readership open access could provide or being able to update a ‘living’ book as new data comes to hand. These are some of the scenarios posed in an engaging and passionate manner by the author.

Hall begins his thesis by examining the more businesslike approach to higher education within universities. From an economic perspective, one of the impacts of this ‘neoliberal turn’ (2) in higher education research, is the decline in the number of academic texts being published. He observes that while the traditionally paternalistic, class-bound model of the university belongs to history, the path it has taken in this climate of financial accountability is not however, conducive to academic research and has inhibited rather than increased an academic’s overall output. Finding favour and problems with both models, he suggests an alternative vision for the modern university, one that incorporates open access publishing and invites a radical rethink of the ‘papercentric’ based process.

An editor, writer and publisher in new media, Hall is something of a maverick in the world of online publishing. His credentials include co-founding and editing the open access journal Culture Machine, and operating as a director of the cultural studies open access archive CSeARCH. This project puts into practice some of the author’s suggestions in Digitize This book! Like Peter Singer, Gary Hall is concerned with ethical decision making within his own field and attempts to reflect on his proposals in the chapter ‘IT, Again; or How to Build an Ethical Institution’ (88-102) drawing on Samuel Weber and Jacques Derrida.

Digitize This Book! provides the reader with a range of myths and facts surrounding the publishing game as rules are reviewed and new solutions flagged. We know early career academics find it hard to publish when they are not a ‘name’ and only texts that will sell are published – but who decides? Some of the pluses of open access include affordability for students, less paper wastage, and according to Hall, copyright becomes simplified. In open access, the text is no longer ‘dead’ and instead develops into an ongoing project, with updates, links and comments from other readers.

Clearly Hall is committed to his cause, challenging us to rethink the ways we assess, archive and access knowledge. While reading Digitize This Book! I felt like I was at times reading a book within a book within a book due to the amount of material and subject matter covered. It is well written with a user friendly layout. There is a list of relevant terms to google, some of the most detailed (and longest) notes I’ve read, and a comprehensive index. You can also view Gary Hall co-presenting with Clare Birchall on Liquid Theory TV chatting about their work.

I would recommend Digitize This Book! to anyone interested in publishing their work and/or who uses new media in any form. That is, most of us.

Digitize This Book! The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now
(2008)

By Gary Hall
UNIREPS
ISBN: 978016648719
301pp AUD$37.95