“Humanizing the Digital” book now available

Apparently, one of my challenges for 2019 involves book projects, and the number of them one can be involved in. But, hey! This one’s actually gone from idea to reality in record time, thanks to the remarkable community of practitioners I have the privilege to work with.

“Humanizing the Digital: Unproceedings from the MCN 2018 Conference” was born shortly after the 2018 conference in early November. A group of attendees wondered what would happen if we asked the community to reflect on what happened at the conference and submit essays based on that, as opposed to the traditional model of writing up something beforehand, and having all the learning that happens at the event go unrecorded. As the CODE|WORDS project proved, I’m a sucker for experimental publishing models. We convened a group to be an editorial board, and crafted an ambitious vision for a book that would be written, edited and published in time for the Museums and the Web conference in April. Crazy, right?

We put out a call for submissions, got back a very encouraging number of responses, and after many marathon Google hangouts, Doodle polls, and collaboratively edited Google sheets and docs, have managed to produce a book. And thanks to Greg Albers and the Getty’s Quire software, the ability to produce print-ready, web, and ebook editions as well.

I still can’t quite believe it worked, but there’s a big box from Amazon due to show up on my doorstep next week, so if you’re at Museums and the Web next week, I’ll be selling copies! Get ’em while you can!