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Over the course of history, the book and its environment have been in permanent transformation, undergoing changes that have affected its format, textual arrangement, form of reading, and production and distribution systems, as well as its social consideration as an instrument for the transmission of knowledge. One of the greatest changes has taken place in the 21st century with the emergence of digital formats throughout the publishing value chain. If in previous eras the transformations had affected one or other of the mentioned elements, the digital revolution has impacted on all of them simultaneously, as it has modified the ways in which works are created, produced, distributed, and consumed. Also, it has introduced for the first time an element of intermediation between the reader and reading: the device, which, in its different varieties, implies an element of additional complexity. At the present time, and after almost two decades, we can see the advances and setbacks that have occurred on this journey; the achievements and shortcomings from the publishing point of view, in which a strengthening of the big companies can be appreciated; and the emergence of a system of self-publishing that represents a rupture with traditional systems. From the point of view of authorship, the value of the brand, of charisma and prestige, has been emphasised, while a movement of creation is taking place on the fringes of the system that renounces posterity and recognition in favour of visibility. This approach to authorship is also subject to the influx and influence of social networks with their positive effects, in the form of projection, and negative ones, in the form of new ways of censure. Finally, in terms of reading, there is an ambivalent route that runs between the paths of a very strong tradition, linked to the printed book, and digital reading, established from the point of view of practices, but in its more conservative and imitative side with respect to analogue formats; in the digital sphere, new proposals and more innovative initiatives which are attracting the attention of growing but still minority sectors of society are emerging. The digital environment is progressing and consolidating, but it has not yet taken advantage of all the potential that technological advances could provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus epidemic (Covid-19) unleashed worldwide has had repercussions in all social sectors, and the world of culture in general and of publishing in particular have not been an exception. The need to adopt confinement measures has determined the closure of all public spaces related to reading, such as libraries, bookstores and cultural centers, with serious consequences for the sector that has seen its activity to stop. Faced with this situation, there have been numerous actors involved, such as authors, publishers, bookstores, but also individuals, who have developed a set of initiatives to try to alleviate these effects, both for the editorial segment and for the population. On the one hand, the online acquisition systems, advance purchases, flexible deliveries, etc., have been strengthened. And on the other, from the publishing sector, authors, publishers and booksellers have proposed the release of titles for free online reading, or the development of personalized recommendation systems for readers, among many other initiatives. The consequence of all this has been an important growth in the consumption of digital content, verifiable above all in the increase in loans in systems such E-biblio in Spain, and similar platforms in other countries. These movements, although they are of a conjunctural nature, have revealed the possibility of other forms of consumption and distribution of content, little frequented by a large part of the population that, out of necessity, has tried other reading formulas that always look good as an alternative to traditional ones, either as a complement or as another mode of appropriation and consumption that may be the prevailing one in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]