Centre for The Book Conferences and Seminars 2009

Conference: Ninth Australian Library History Conference

The International Book Town Experience: An Australian Perspective

Paul McShane

The Welsh village Hay-on-Wye is usually credited with being the first book town and it has certainly directly inspired many imitators around the world over the past 40 years. This presentation will review the growth of the book town movement both internationally and in Australia, discuss the factors that seem key to success or failure, and the prospects for the future of book towns in a digital age of e-books, print-on-demand and Google Book Search.

Paul McShane was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2002 to visit and study 15 book towns around the world. He is the Convenor of BookTown Australia and was a founder of Australia's first formal Book Town project in the NSW Southern Highlands in 1999. Paul created the BOOKtrail concept in the Southern Highlands and is assisting others in Australia and worldwide to develop similar projects to promote their bookshops and the literary heritage of their regions.

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The Book Beyond the Page: Book Fairs, Screen Festivals and Writers’ Weeks

Simone Murray

Books have a rich public life beyond the printed page. This paper will consider three key fora through which book content circulates: international book fairs; screen festivals; and writers’ weeks. In particular it will investigate how these phenomena incubate the adaptation of book content into other media, and how such adaptations are then marketed back to book-centric audiences.

Simone Murray is Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies and Director of the Centre for the Book at Monash University. Her research focuses on the interface of the book with other communications media, particularly via digital multiformatting of content. Her book Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics (Pluto Press UK) was awarded the 2005 SHARP DeLong Book Prize for the best book on print culture published during 2004. Her current research focuses on the industrial substructures of book-to-screen adaptations of literary prize-winners, and how such research can combine book history, print culture and media studies perspectives.

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