Higher Education Book Publishing—from Print to Digital: A Review of the Literature

This paper reviews the existing literature on higher education book publishing, particularly in view of the transformation happening in the book value chain due to content digitization. The paper examines how content digitization has impacted four key aspects of higher education book publishing, namely ‘technological elements of publishing’, ‘publishing economics’, ‘user attitudes and preferences’ and ‘copyright issues’. This review brings into perspective how content digitization affects various stakeholders such as publishers, authors, academicians, libraries, researchers and students. It provides a summary view of how digitization impacts access to higher education books as well as learning processes and outcomes in multiple contexts across regions. The paper systematically examines available evidence on the topic by focussing on a general description of issues pertaining to digitization of higher education books.