The Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication at the University of Stirling is delighted to be making the following awards to students who will be graduating from the MLitt in Publishing Studies on 22 November 2013.

• The Freight Books Prize for Publishing Design – Lina Pettersson Langlee

• The Faber & Faber Prize for Digital Innovation – Claire Jeffery

• The Publishing Scotland Prize for the Best Dissertation – Lina Pettersson Langlee

• The Taylor & Francis Prize for the most Distinguished Student on the MLitt in Publishing Studies – Joanne Marjoribanks

All the prizes are sponsored by members of the Centre’s Industry Advisory Board, several of whom are offering prizes to students in the Centre for the first time.

Lina Pettersson Langlee is the recipient of both the Freight Books Prize for Publishing Design and the Publishing Scotland Prize for the Best Dissertation. For the former, she took on a challenging design project, producing a beautiful final product which demonstrated panache, clever choices, and strong understanding of the potential market for her book, Dear Father… For this, Lina wins £100 of cash and £100 of books of her choice from Glasgow-based publisher Freight Books.

Lina’s prize-winning dissertation, for which she will receive £100 of books of her choice from Publishing Scotland’s BooksFromScotland.com website, was titled ‘Is Text No Longer Enough? A Look at the Digital Turn of “New Literacies” and Going Beyond the Text’. The dissertation examines how publishers are attending to new digital literacies, and included case studies of The 39 Clues and Pottermore. Her conclusion to the question of whether text is no longer enough? Simultaneously yes and no. Lina is currently working on a freelance basis for a number of companies, including Freight Books.

Claire Jeffery is the winner of the Faber & Faber Prize for Digital Innovation, for her work developing the concept of and designs for an app based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde. Claire’s work here demonstrated strong knowledge of the original text, including how to adapt and gamify it for a digital market. She embraced the digital medium’s capacity for extra material and interactivity. Her award will consist of a two-day placement with Faber & Faber in London, during which she will have the opportunity to meet with the heads of Faber Digital, Faber Factory, and the marketing team. Claire is now working as Production Assistant at Prepress Projects in Perth.

Joanne Marjoribanks is the winner for the Taylor & Francis Prize for the most Distinguished Student on the MLitt in Publishing Studies, thus winning £200 of books from T&F. Jo’s overall grade profile on the course was consistently high, and she produced extremely strong work including a dissertation which examined ‘The Soul of the Indie Bookseller’, and a publishing project in which she created a guidebook for families with teenagers whose siblings are autistic.

Professor Claire Squires, Director of the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication, commented that ‘It’s a great validation of our MLitt in Publishing Studies to have these industry-sponsored prizes, which showcase the work of the Centre and its students. We congratulate the individual students on their creativity, knowledge, skills and understanding of the publishing industry, and are particularly delighted to be able to have prize-winning work which celebrate digital savvy and entrepreneurialism – key attributes for the publishers of the future.’