Live Sociology 4: Sites and Sounds

Following on from Saturday’s Live Sociology Workshop back at Goldsmiths University, London, I’ve just downloaded Audacity from Sourceforge.  This is free sound editing tool, useful if you’re interested in podcasting, publishing in hypertext or simply editing down your audio data into more managable forms.

The session as a whole was focused on internet publishing and the affordances of multimedia.  Prof Les Back gave the group a preview of a site he has been working on: The Academic Diary – particularly examining the trade off between book and website, with some interesting reflections on attempting to retain the visceral and  physical qualities of the book. 

Of course, publishing works both ways, and another tier to this cross-pollination for consideration comes in the form of Blurb. Blurb is a print-on-demand online service that allows anyone to publish their own books.  At the workshop we got to see some examples of short print runs that Goldsmiths students had published of their own work (complete with ISBNs) – which got me excited about the prospect of publishing my thesis, or support documents in some new and interesting form.  I’ll be checking on the Rules of Submission and getting back to you…