Media Commons; Future of the Book (USC/Annenberg)

The MediaCommons project is part of the Institute for the Future of the Book, & they seem to be doing things that relate closely to the UO's New Research Summit:

"As has been mentioned several times here, the Institute for the Future of the Book has spent much of 2006 exploring the future of electronic scholarly publishing and its many implications, including the development of alternate modes of peer-review and the possibilities for networked interaction amongst authors and texts. Over the course of the spring, we brainstormed, wrote a bunch of manifestos, and planned a meeting at which a group of primarily humanities-based scholars discussed the possibilities for a new model of academic publishing...."

Online-Only University Press & textbooks (Rice/Connexions)

Dear New Researchers:

I hope you're all having a great summer. Dave Moursand forwarded this article to my attention.

Andrew

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RICE PRESS REBORN AS ONLINE ONLY
Rice University will restart its press, which was closed in 1996, as an online-only operation, publishing peer-reviewed books and monographs. Faced with declining budgets, many libraries buy fewer books, leaving academic publishers unwilling to publish books unless they can justify the printing costs. Rice's model does away with printing, allowing the press to publish texts not published otherwise while considerably speeding up the publishing process. Because texts will be peer-reviewed, organizers hope the reborn Rice press will be as
prestigious--and as valid for tenure or promotion--as a traditional press. The press will operate through Connexions, a site that offers course materials free of charge. Separately, Connexions will also begin offering print-on-demand custom textbooks, assembled from individual modules within Connexions. The textbooks are expected to cost significantly less than comparable offerings from traditional textbook publishers.
Inside Higher Ed, 14 July 2006
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/14/rice