Simon Rowberry

Abstract: It is difficult to talk about the digitalization of the book trade without mentioning Amazon, but the constituency and scale of the retailer have not undergone large-scale critical scrutiny. Amazon’s infrastructure, including the integration of ISBNs into Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs), has shaped the book trade over last two decades, and in places, has replaced traditional sources of information such as Bowker’s Books in Print and Nielsen BookScan. Amazon thus presents a large cache of data for publishing studies, although Amazon is notoriously secretive.

The current project maps Amazon UK’s online bookselling infrastructure and offers an initial foray into how this data can be analysed to present a survey of the contemporary publishing landscape. While Amazon’s websites are a living resource that are difficult to map, there is an impetus to archive and analyse data immediately, as Amazon is not an archival resource, aptly demonstrated by their purge of pre-Kindle ebook data in 2007 and their recent closure of the public popular highlights function. To this end, the current project will provide an overview of Amazon’s digital infrastructure, followed by two practical applications: (1) tracking the used book marketplace with a focus on Vladimir Nabokov; and (2) analysing Amazon’s use a cataloguing tool for books not on sale through Amazon or third-party seller. Through these case studies, the paper aims to open conversations of how to use Amazon as a research tool as well as a research object.

Abstract: Mass digitization of text has resulted in the development of textual generators that are much more capable of writing through reading pre-existing chunks of text. While they do not understand the semantics of the text, many of these machines are capable of creating reasonably intelligible discourse through their reading and reassembly of pre-existing texts. Through targeting specific corpora (including Moby Dick and live data from a remote buoy; instructions from WikiHow; and a database of time zones), text generators and Twitterbots are creating engaging literary works. In this paper, I will theorise and historicise the development of reading automata within the wider context of the recent textual return in digital media facilitated by the development of ebooks and Twitter.

Abstract: Digital media presents several challenges to the index, but this ignores the fact that the index has played an important role in the development of the computer. Hypertext, or links between chunks of text, is a vital concept in computation, and one which can be traced back to the index. The author explores the link between indexes and hypertext through three case studies of novels with indexes: Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale fire, Mark Z. Danielewski’sHouse of leaves and Steven Hall’s The raw shark texts. This analysis reveals how indexes can be used as a subversive part of experimental fiction that authors employ to encourage the reader to move beyond superficial forms of reading.

Simon Rowberry, “‘Indexes as Hypertext.” The Indexer. June 2015, pp. 50-56
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/index/tiji/2015/00000033/00000002/art00002