Exploring New (Digital) Publishing Practices with *Le Pressoir*

Abstract

As is well known, scientific publishing is a complex activity, and many constraints must be taken into account in order to address a range of issues, be they the structuration of the text, the inclusion of a critical apparatus, the sharing of texts during the revision and editing phases, and the dissemination of the final version via multiple platforms. Existing publishing chains allow for the management of texts, their production, editing and publication; they are systems that take these parameters into account by default. However, they remain dependent on specific software that is generally not well adapted to scientific publishing, or on technical infrastructures that are difficult to maintain and to use by SSH researchers, or that do not allow for experimentation and necessary rethinking on new editorial and epistemological models. What if, by modifying the publishing chains from more singular technical approaches, it is possible to consider new publishing practices? It is about rethinking the way books are edited and published through the editing of books in a university publisher series ("Parcours numériques" at the Presse de l’Université de Montréal). Several principles are adopted to reconfigure the publishing chain: multimodal publishing, modular factory, minimal computing and progressive enhancement. Furthermore, it is about what was adapted for a new publishing experiment (Les Ateliers de [sens public]) along the way.