Margaret Zeegers

The Children's Book Council of Australia National Conference in Sydney in May this year also raised a number of interesting issues regarding the future of the book, and devoted a panel session to issues raised by the rapid and wonderfully interesting new formats for reading. A major theme was the posting of reading and reading responses on the Web. What was most interesting, though, was the fact that regardless of how things are published, the ownership of the material itself resides with the author of the material. It would seem, therefore, that authors (of books, of journal articles, of newpaper articles and reports, and so on)are pretty secure in their positions. Apparently those who are not so secure are those in traditional outlets of that material (publishing houses, booksellers, newspaper owners, and so on). It would appear that these are the ones that need to be on their toes when it comes to people being able to access what is being produced by writers; that the writers themselves need have little fear as to what happens to the books that they produce. Has anybody else been to nay such sessions, or would like to comment?
Margaret Zeegers