Our editorial profile here at the Digital Digest is changing! You may notice the new tag line on the Digital Digest: “news and commentary from the AAUP.” The blog is taking on a new life as a more comprehensive media channel for the association, rather than strictly limited to digital publishing news. And a big reason for that is the reality that digital publishing is itself not strictly limited to any one aspect of university press work (if it ever really was.)

One of the most-read posts on the Digital Digest was Tony Sanfilippo’s “Books Places in the Digital Age.” And, sure, it was a piece about e-books and e-retailing. But it was also about bookstores and readers; print books as well as e-books. It was about marketing, sales, metadata, and digital production. It was about people and processes.

So the editorial interests of the Digital Digest will be de jure and not just de facto opened up to the interests of the entire Association. Why not change the name? Well, it’s still a digital digest, and we wouldn’t want our hungry robot to feel out of place! After several years of discussing just what this blog should encompass, the Digital Publishing Committee is passing primary editorial responsibility to the AAUP Central Office (though the committee will still be important contributors) and we hope to hear more regularly from other AAUP Committees, as well.

As a launch into our new broader set of themes, AAUP will soon publish here a series of personal stories from editors and publishers of “Books that Matter”—their favorite stories of what publishing a book has meant to them or in the world. Stories such as these help make clear that, digital or analog, it is the people of AAUP—and by that, I mean to include the authors and readers and subjects—that make our community and our work so fascinating.

We look forward to publishing those narratives, as well as continuing posts on digital publishing trends and challenges—and much more!