About

hugh mcguireI am a writer and a builder* of webby things. I am particularly interested in the power that the web has put into the hands of citizens to make media, share ideas and try to shape the world around them.

I am the co-founder (with Stephanie Troeth) of Book Oven, a still-under-wraps start-up, that is a collaborative space for the making of books. While we’re working on Book Oven in secret, you might like to read our blog, about books, making books and our relationship with text in the digital age.

I’m founder of LibriVox.org, an all-volunteer project that makes free, public domain audiobooks. LibriVox was once called “perhaps the most interesting collaborative cultural project this side of Wikipedia.” We are the most prolific audiobook publisher in the world, putting out 70-100 books a month. We have a catalog of 2,100+ books, in 29 languages. All driven by the passion of thousands of volunteers around the world who love books.

I write for the Huffinton Post about digital media and publishing, and give occasional talks about creative collaboration, open web communities, and how the web enables big groups of strangers to get complex tasks accomplished. I speak about these topics fairly often, and have given presentations in various places including:

  • The Future of Publishing, at BookNetCanada Technology Forum
  • Marketing Culture on the Web, at the National Film Board
  • Public Domain, Copyright, and the Web, at McGill University
  • How Podcasting Can Save the World, at PodcastersAcrossBorders

I’m on the Advisory Board of the Conversations Network, and I am President of the Board of Directors of the Atwater Library, Canada’s last remaining Mechanic’s Institute.

I have a few other projects here and there, including earideas (great audio from around the web), datalibre (a blog urging Canadian governments to make government data available to citizens), and the Canadian Cultural Podcasting portal, built by my company for the Canadian government.

Before rediscovering the web, I worked in environmental finance, where I helped build and market structured financial products to address the risk of greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements for large global energy companies, while financing greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects. It was souped-up, complex carbon trading, and we were far too early.

I’ve got degrees in Mathematics & Engineering, as well as Philosophy, from Queen’s University.

I also like cooking, wine, Scotch, and growing tomatoes on my roof, among many other things. My favourite authors include: Haruki Murakami, Jose Saramago, Miriam Toews, and Vladimir Nabokov, but the list is much longer.

To get in touch you can send me an email, connect on linkedin, or follow me on twitter.

Here are some press articles/interviews about LibriVox, the most successful project I’ve been involved with:

*By “builder” I most definitely don’t mean coder. I am, as they say, an “ideas guy.” Luckily, sometimes other people, with coding skills, share similar ideas.

[pic by Shawna]