The The INC Reader series of the Institute of Network Cultures was developed in 2005, a year after the founding of the institute and its website. The first one, from late 2005, not yet marked as #1, came out with a CD-ROM that contained the videos of the two-day event in June 2005 at the Post-CS building in Amsterdam. The Incommunicado conference was a global critical investigation of the ICT4D agenda of the UN World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in 2003. After this initial publication more or less every year a INC reader was produced as the INC flagship publication.

The premise of the INC, reader is one of a fast production of critical knowledge of emerging issues in global techno-culture, distributed widely, for free. INC reader are often, but not always, connected to the existing INC research networks and related conferences, held in Amsterdam and elsewhere. Sometimes the event and the network would cater for the entire content, in other cases there would be an additional call for materials. The idea of the readers was to have an alternative to academic journals and their (anonymous) peer review system. The readers are edited, designed and printed within a year and then distributed via pdf, e-pub and printed (1000-2000 copies) for free distribution, worldwide, mainly to be used in classes. Two or three bookstores are selling the readers (in Amsterdam, Berlin and New York). Only the first VideoVortex reader has had a second print run. Most readers are available on the print-on-demand service Lulu.