[Save the Date] Practicing Experimental Books: Celebrating Copim’s Book Pilots | April 8-9, 2026
Julien McHardy
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to invite you to Practicing Experimental Books: Celebrating Copim’s Book Pilots, a two-day online conference taking place on 8 and 9 April 2026.
As the Open Book Futures (OBF) project approaches its conclusion, Copim’s Experimental Publishing Group is hosting this event to showcase three years of collaborative research and pilot projects. This conference is specifically designed for scholars, publishers, and technology providers interested in the future of the open access book.
Why Attend? While "experimental publishing" often focuses on theory, this event centers on practice.
The Programme is organized around three core sessions:
Infrastructuring: Rethinking non-commercial publishing infrastructures as social, affective, and technological practices.
Open Peer Reviewing: Exploring how editorial workflows can expand through open and collaborative review models.
Binding: Examining the technical and conceptual possibilities of "binding" books from diverse, dynamic, and versioned digital materials.
Who Should Join?
Publishers: To learn how to integrate experimental forms (multimodal, versioned, or data-driven books) into established production and dissemination workflows.
Software & Tool Providers: To engage in dialogue on how to strengthen the relationship between open-source tools and the needs of the academic community.
Researchers & Librarians: To explore new collaborative futures for open humanities research.
Event Details:
Dates: Wednesday 8 April (14:30 – 16:30 BST) & Thursday 9 April (14:00 – 17:30 BST)
Location: Online
Registration and more Info: https://copim.pub/online-conference-practicing-experimental-books-celebrating-copims-book-pilots/
The discussions from this conference will also directly inform Copim’s Experimental Publishing Compendium, a living resource for tools and practices in experimental scholarly publishing.
We look forward to reimagining the future of the book with you.
Best regards,
Julien McHardy, Mattering Press, On behalf of Copim’s Experimental Publishing Group