Elpub 2012 will be focusing on the social shaping of digital publishing by exploring the interplay between culture and technology. This is why we are doing it in the European Capital of Culture for 2012, Guimarães. Topics include but are not restricted to Digital Scholarship, Open Access and Open Science, Interoperability and the Intelligent Web, The Social and Mobile Web, The legal, secure and trustful Web, Innovative interfaces, interaction and visualization, Failures and learnings, and the future of Digital Publishing. Contributions are invited for research papers; posters and extended abstracts. Accepted full papers will be published by IOS Press in a digital format open access conference proceedings book. Deadline for submission of full-text papers and extended abstracts (in all categories) is 9 January 2012.