KU Focus 2026: Digital Lives

Digital Lives: How Technologies Transform our Contemporary Living is a unique Open Access collection shaped by a new, more collaborative selection process at KU. Unlike KU Select, which is curated by KU’s librarian-led Selection Committee, this collection invited publishers to submit titles they believed address urgent or emerging topics that may not be represented in existing KU packages. The result is a powerful, organically surfaced body of scholarship that explores how digital technologies are transforming every dimension of human life, from identity, creativity, and communication to work, governance, and social relationships.

Libraries that fund Digital Lives help ensure that cutting-edge, interdisciplinary scholarship on the digital condition becomes openly available to all. The collection offers fresh insights into how societies are adapting to–and sometimes resisting–the rapid pace of technological change. From critical studies of AI and surveillance to explorations of online culture, digital labor, and virtual creativity, these titles address questions that affect researchers, educators, policymakers, and the public alike. By supporting Digital Lives, libraries signal their commitment to making sense of the digital transformations that shape our century.