Teacher(s)
Language
French
Prerequisites
Prerequisites : a good level of general and cultural knowledge in the literary field, including analytical skills.
Main themes
The course will provide students with a short and critical overview of the main approaches to the contemporary bookselling profession and its management. This will include business aspects of bookselling, the bookselling market and its organisational aspects, customer surveys and specific management skills linked to this particular sector.
Learning outcomes
At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to : | |
| The pressure between cultural and commercial aspects, which has always existed in the bookselling profession, has increased today with the additional pressures between traditional expertise and the industrialisation of so-called cultural products. Bookshops have become cultural enterprises, each one having specific projects. By the end of the course, the student should be capable of analysing these specific aspects. |
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Content
Since the early 19th century, the bookselling business has been establishing links between publishing supply (upstream) and customers demand (downstream).
At the junction between symbolic and economic capitals underlying the cultural field of books, the bookseller profession undergoes as well tensions between a long standing practice and the globalised industrialization of cultural products. The traditional know-how of bookselling comprises stock, fitting, promotion and management. As for the industrialization of book trade, nowadays it results in publishing overproduction which overloads the booksellers' displays. This situation requires the modification of professional management practices. Moreover, the cultural industry currently experiences a radical transformation towards the digital format.
This course is aimed at giving theoretical tools to students for the analysis of any ongoing bookseller's business plan and for the study of movements in the current book market (notably the e-book market), especially in the Belgian French-speaking area..
At the junction between symbolic and economic capitals underlying the cultural field of books, the bookseller profession undergoes as well tensions between a long standing practice and the globalised industrialization of cultural products. The traditional know-how of bookselling comprises stock, fitting, promotion and management. As for the industrialization of book trade, nowadays it results in publishing overproduction which overloads the booksellers' displays. This situation requires the modification of professional management practices. Moreover, the cultural industry currently experiences a radical transformation towards the digital format.
This course is aimed at giving theoretical tools to students for the analysis of any ongoing bookseller's business plan and for the study of movements in the current book market (notably the e-book market), especially in the Belgian French-speaking area..
Teaching methods
Lecture.
Evaluation methods
The work must be submitted on the Moodle space of the course on the 1st day of the session in which the student is registered.
When writing the final written work, students must demonstrate their perfect mastery of the rules of bibliographic referencing; at the risk of being suspected of plagiarism, they must take care to
This definition supplements that set out in art. 107 §2 of the RGEE and constitutes a special provision within the meaning of §3 of the same article.
Any student who fails to comply with the standards of scientific referencing set out above is liable, in the event of irregularity or plagiarism established by the jury, to academic sanctions as detailed in the RGEE (section 7).
If generative artificial intelligence (AI) is used, it must be used responsibly and in accordance with the practices of academic and scientific integrity. As scientific integrity requires that sources be cited, the use of AI must always be reported. https://cdn.uclouvain.be/groups/cms-editors-p1/portail/reglement/Consignes-ChatGPT-version-etudiante.pdf?itok=SebXXm87
When writing the final written work, students must demonstrate their perfect mastery of the rules of bibliographic referencing; at the risk of being suspected of plagiarism, they must take care to
- DO NOT copy a text without inverted commas and/or without mentioning the source;
- DO NOT reproduce a graph, data, illustration, etc. without mentioning the source;
- DO NOT reformulate or summarise an author's original idea without mentioning the source;
- DO NOT translate, in whole or in part, a source without referencing it;
- DO NOT use someone else's work by presenting it as your own (even if the author of the work has given his or her agreement);
- DO NOT buy a work.
This definition supplements that set out in art. 107 §2 of the RGEE and constitutes a special provision within the meaning of §3 of the same article.
Any student who fails to comply with the standards of scientific referencing set out above is liable, in the event of irregularity or plagiarism established by the jury, to academic sanctions as detailed in the RGEE (section 7).
If generative artificial intelligence (AI) is used, it must be used responsibly and in accordance with the practices of academic and scientific integrity. As scientific integrity requires that sources be cited, the use of AI must always be reported. https://cdn.uclouvain.be/groups/cms-editors-p1/portail/reglement/Consignes-ChatGPT-version-etudiante.pdf?itok=SebXXm87
Other information
Online resources
Course Moodle site
Bibliography
Site Moodle du cours
Faculty or entity
