Since the advent of the Web, the processes and forms of electronic publishing have been changing. The open access movement has been a major driver of change in recent years with regard to scholarly communication; however, changes are also evident in other fields of application such as e-government and e-learning. In most cases these changes are driven by technological advances, but there are also cases where a change in social reality pushes technological development. Both the social and mobile web and linked data are currently shaping the edge of research in digital publishing. Liquid publishing is on the more daring agendas. Digital preservation is an issue that poses great challenges which are still far from being solved. The legal issues, security and trust continue to deserve our full attention. We need new visualization techniques and innovative interfaces that will keep pace with the global dimension of information. This is the current scenario, but what will follow? What are the technologies and social and communication paradigms that we will be discussing in ten or twenty years?

ELPUB 2012 focuses on the social shaping of digital publishing, exploring the interplay between culture and technology. This makes the fact that it is being held in the European Capital of Culture for 2012, Guimarães, Portugal, all the more appropriate.

52 submissions were received for ELPUB 2012, from which 23 articles and 10 posters were accepted after peer review. Of the accepted articles, 11 were submitted as full articles and 12 as extended abstracts. These articles have been grouped into sessions on the following topics: Sessions 1 and 4 – Digital Scholarship & Publishing; Session 2 – Special Archives; Session 3 – Libraries & Repositories, Session 5 – Digital Texts & Readings, and Session 6 – Future Solutions & Innovations.

The programme features two keynote speeches. Kathleen Fitzpatrick's speech is entitled “Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy”, that of Antonio Câmara is entitled “Publishing in 2021”. Finally we call your attention to the panel on e-books, which is entitled “Academic e-books – Technological hostage or cultural redeemer?”.

We believe this is another great edition of the ELPUB conference. We would like to take this opportunity to thank both the members of the ELPUB executive committee and the members of the local advisory committee, for making it happen. Together they provided valuable advice and assistance during the entire organization process. Secondly we would like to mention our colleagues on the program committee, who assured the quality of the conference through the peer review process. Last but not least, we wish to thank the local organization team for ensuring that all this effort culminates in a very interesting scientific event on the 14th and 15th of June. Thank you all for helping us to maintain the quality of ELPUB and merit the trust of our authors and attendees. We wish you all a good conference and we say farewell, hoping to see you again in Sweden in 2013!

The editors,

Ana Baptista

Peter Linde

Niklas Lavesson

Miguel A. Brito