Charles Watkinson (2018): The academic eBook ecosystem reinvigorated. A perspective from the USA. Learned Publishing 51(S1), 280-287. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1185
The development of infrastructure to support new forms of long‐form digital scholarship that go ‘beyond the eBook’ has been an active area of humanities publishing over the last 5 years. Proactive philanthropic support for this work has energized the US non‐profit publishing community, especially university presses and library‐based publishers. This article describes the various strands of work that are ongoing and identifies some common themes: an emphasis on shared values; a focus on building an ecosystem of interoperable platforms and tools; and engagement with the challenges facing new‐form digital publications (especially preservation, discovery, and accessibility). This article also considers how publishers who are looking for new platforms and processes can navigate the variety of options now on offer.