APD Brief November 2012

Welcome to the November 2012 instalment of APD Brief

Welcome to the latest issue of APD Brief, which gives a summary of key conferences, events and reports affecting academic publishing this autumn. 

APD Brief Highlights

Scholarly Outreach, Impacts & Outcomes – 6^th Bloomsbury Conference, UCL – London, 28-29 June

Public engagement turned out to be the main theme of this conference.  As the programme developed it became clear that those with something relevant to say came from both inside and outside academia; speakers ranged over topics from citizen scholarship (where projects challenge perceptions of the boundaries between experts and public, and between human and machine), to altmetrics (a specific form of web analytics).    

Fifth ALPSP International  Conference – Tamworth, 11-13 September  

Speakers tackled issues including trends and discontinuities in scholarly publishing, the dangers of talking down the value of copyright while talking up technology, and text mining and data developments.  PA CEO Richard Mollet spoke on what the coalition has done for copyright.

The Booksellers Association Conference 2012 – Coventry, 16-17 September

This year’s event got straight down to discussing in detail what anyone who wants to sell books needs to do in the current environment, including ways in which publishers and booksellers can work towards a more successful future together.  The best independent bookshops are alive and kicking, offering useful pointers to what works.      

Researchers of Tomorrow - Report

This major piece of research undertaken by JISC and the British Library looks at Generation Y, the generation that has grown up with the web.  Findings reveal that doctoral students’ research behaviour does not use the full potential of innovative technology.      

SCONUL Annual Library Statistics

The commentaries to these stats from respondents as well as the figures themselves provide an illuminating look at what libraries’ priorities are and how they are responding to a rapidly shifting education landscape.

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APD Brief July 2012

Welcome to the July 2012 instalment of APD Brief

Welcome to the latest issue of APD Brief, which gives a summary of key events and developments affecting academic publishing this summer. 

  * News Update* – The Finch Review & the EC Recommendation on Scientific Information

Readers will be aware of the major announcements made this month on (open) access to the results of publicly funded research.  

The PA has welcomed the UK Government’s position on this, and its support for a funded solution set out in a letter from David Willetts to Janet Finch accepting most proposals in her Access Group report, including a preference for  the ‘Gold’ (funded) over the ‘Green’ (derivative) model, and the realisation that publishing costs must be recovered in a sustainable way.  There has been some turbulence on the blogs over whether the Research Councils UK policy diverges from Finch, though the PA belief is that it aligns with Finch on embargo periods.  

The European Commission, in its Communication and Recommendation on scientific information also published this month, would appear to be less clear than the UK Government in its preference for Gold.  It leaves the door open for the Green model as an alternative, and specifies a maximum embargo period of six months save for social sciences and humanities.  It will however monitor implementation and review specific problems. 

Highlights

The Charles Clark Lecture – London Book Fair, 17 April

Head of the European Commission Copyright Unit Maria Martin-Prat, delivering this year’s Charles Clark Memorial Lecture at the London Book Fair, flagged the increasing need to remind politicians of the revenues and jobs that publishing generates at a time when long-established business models are coming under increasing pressure.  She warned that if the young and talented do not keep hold of copyright, ‘by the time they want to be rewarded for the novel they have written it will be too late.’

Emerging Opportunities in Medical Publishing – London, 19 April

This STM event presented ways publishing platforms can support new business models, a focus on China, views on the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and medical publishers, a session on how content fits into the clinician’s workflow, and ten lessons from publishing medical tablet applications.

E-books and E-Content – UCL, London, 10 May

Students’ preference for print seems to be coming under significant pressure from e-books; they may not know they are using e-books but are getting the information on time; and they are showing a declining use of Wikipedia and an increased trust in librarians.  These findings came from a session exploring a global student e-book survey which compared trends and perceptions in 2008 and in 2011.  Other sessions investigated the role of the social in online educational resources, and asked whether EPUB3 was master, mainstream or marginalised format. 

PEER End of Project Conference – Brussels, 29 May

The key message from the newly-concluded Publishing and the Ecology of European Research project is that gold open access publication if the practical route to achieving sustainable open access.   

The Potential Effect of Making Journals Free after a Six-Month Embargo – report summary

This report, jointly commissioned by The Publishers Association and the Association of Learned, Professional and Scientific Publishers (ALPSP), solicited opinion on how the acquisition policies of academic libraries might be affected by the widespread availability of journal articles free of charge six months after publication.  It found that an across-the-board mandate might have a material effect on libraries’ subscriptions, suggesting that a six-month embargo period is too short for the ‘green’ model of open access.

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APD Brief May 2012

Welcome to the May 2012 instalment of APD Brief

Welcome to the latest issue of APD Brief, which gives a summary of key events and developments affecting academic publishing this spring.  Click on the attachment for the full newsletter, or click through to the pdf on the PA website.   

Highlights

Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) Conference – Berlin, 23-25 January 2012

Though formal scholarly communication has not changed in essentials from the pre-digital era, demand-driven forces are building up.  OA is no longer the devil’s work, and publishers having to live with only marginally increased library budgets are contemplating new business models.  Co-operation with funding bodies is one way forward, but is the semantic web really dead? 

Annual Subscriptions Agents (ASA) Conference – London, 27-28 February 2012

This year’s conference tackled the damage done by the container model of publishing, the implications of information abundance, next generation analytics of library management, the role of the agent – and again the death of the semantic web. 

The Booksellers Association:  Academic, Professional and Specialist (APS) Booksellers Conference – Warwickshire, 14-15 March

This year’s APS Conference focused on the changes sweeping through the HE sector.  Transcripts of the managed debates – a student panel session and keynote forum -  are included in full to give a true flavour of deliberations currently underway in the industry.  The jury is still out on how students expect resources will be provided in future, though the student panel responded positively to rental models, and students still like print, though industry needs to fix the quality of some ebooks before outsiders try to fix it for us.

UKSG Conference – Glasgow, 26-28 March

Keynote speaker Stephen Abram of Cengage Learning made it clear that the traditional laws of supply and demand no longer work for the information industries, but reassured librarians and publishers that they would not be replaced by technology as their insights and opinions are vital.  Subsequent sessions tackled Open Access, and how libraries are functioning in the face of cuts.

Reports on Access to Scholarly Content and Institutional Repositories

A report from RIN looks at the gaps in access to journal articles and conference proceedings where researchers need information for a specific purpose but cannot get ready access to it, and the barriers which cause those gaps.  A separate report, from CIBER, finds that library directors do not think repositories herald major reform of scholarly communication and publishing, but that the increased digital visibility they offer will benefit publishers.

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APD Brief March 2012

Welcome to the March 2012 instalment of APD Brief

Welcome to the latest issue of APD Brief, which gives a summary of key events and developments affecting academic publishing over the last quarter. 

Highlights

Charleston Conference – 2-5 November, South Carolina, US

This annual conference is a bellwether of library thinking, and could do with more publisher attendees.  Hot topics included data – semantic metadata in the wild, data sharing and data publishing – digital repositories (subject of research by CIBER Research), and change management for libraries which attracted a blistering presentation. Delegates were also updated on plans for a Digital Public Library of America which could impact on US copyright law.        

STM Innovations – 2 December, London

As speakers responded to their theme of ‘Enriching Content:  deeper, smarter, better’ the key foci that emerged were semantic technologies, data and the article of the future.  The scholarly publication is at a tipping point for real change after two decades of innovation, argued speaker Anita de Waard (Elsevier Labs); this event’s popular future flash sessions gave an idea of what elements of this change might look like.

Are Publishers Born or Made?  Seminar, Kingston University – 17 January

This seminar, hosted by the Department of Publishing and Journalism at Kingston University and supported by the Publishers Association and the Association for Publishing Education, argued the pros and cons of internship and HE qualifications in publishing.  PA CEO Richard Mollet highlighted relevant priorities for publishers – to engage in copyright and public library debates, adapt for the digital age, keep quality up, embrace diversity, and maintain clear communication with the publishing education sector. 

ePub3 and HTML5 – ALPSP seminar, 18 January, London

This update seminar gave an insight into the technologies which are rapidly progressing from being innovative to being accepted as trade standards for e-book delivery.  Highlights included statistics from the Book Industry Study Group.    

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APD Brief December 2011

Welcome to the December 2011 instalment of APD Brief

Welcome to the latest issue of APD Brief, which gives a summary of key events and developments affecting academic publishing over the last quarter. 

Highlights

STM Conference at Frankfurt Book Fair – 11 October, London

This high-level international conference attracted speakers including futurist Frank Schirrmacher, who spoke on the demands of digital on brain function.  Sessions on peer review and Gold and Green approaches to open access followed, and the event concluded with Macmillan CEO Annette Thomas in conversation with David Worlock of Outsell.

JISC e-journal archiving group – 19 October, London

This group, which includes publishers, has taken on the issue of a gap between universities concerned about the long-term safety of e-journals and those actually subscribing to e-journal archiving services.  Its acronym is JARVIG and its goal is to work on a national infrastructure for e-journal archiving.    

The APD Conference:  Students at the Heart of the System – 21 November, London

Keynote speaker Professor Ian Diamond identified the challenges and opportunities publishers face in light of the recent government white paper, and a student forum revealed how long students want textbooks to be – and how consulted they feel on their contents.  Additional sessions on effective partnerships between universities and industry and innovative publishing initiatives followed. 

APD AGM 2011 – 29 November, London

This year’s AGM offered updates on the PA’s Copyright Infringement Portal from Ian Noble of Joomlaware who develops the portal for the PA, a review of the PA’s anti-piracy campaigns from Simon Littlewood (International Director, Random House and Chair of the PA International Board) and PA International Director Emma House, and a summary of the opportunities ahead for the PA’s academic and professional members from Academic & Professional Division Director Graham Taylor.

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APD Brief September 2011

 Welcome to the September 2011 instalment of APD Brief

Highlights

Social Media and the Academy – 30 June-1 July, London

This conference, the fifth in the series of UCL Bloomsbury conferences, tackled Enhancing and Enabling Scholarly Communication.  Speakers ranged over digital scholars’ information behaviour, intermediaries, adopting and adapting tools and scholars’ approach to social media. 

ALPSP International Conference – 14-16 September, Chipping Norton

A well-attended conference explored how digital transition has worked for journals and books, the idea of disruptive change, worldwide scholarly publishing, how publishers can explain the value they offer, scholarly media and the scholarly record, and more. 

Open Access update

Price as a barrier, the Princeton mandate, SCOAP and the arguments that blew back and forth after George Monbiot’s article on scholarly publishing in The Guardian are covered.

APD Conference 2011 – 21 November, London

Come join us at this year’s APD conference, Students at the Heart of the System:  how to fulfil their learning needs?, to be held on 21 November at the ICO Conference Centre, London W1 from 10am – 4pm.  We aim to explore the implications of the HE White Paper published in June.  Our keynote speaker will be Professor Ian Diamond, who led the UUK Modernisation and Efficiency Task Group which reported in September and whose work will shape recommendations based on the White Paper.  Visit www.publishers.org.uk/StudentsAtHeart for a full programme and to register.    

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APD Brief August 2011

Highlights

Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting – 1-3 June, Boston

This conference, on ‘How Data Transforms our World,’ gave insights into ways of managing data from the worlds of science, publishing, libraries, academe and Google, with emphases on partnership working and best practice.

PLS Annual Meeting – 12 July, London

This meeting marked PLS’ 30^th anniversary, and celebrated an unprecedentedly large distribution to members of £34 million over the last year.  For the future, the organisation faces the challenges of issues that Hargreaves has pointed out, though it can rely on the solid foundation of existing copyright law.  Price is at the nub of it all, said PLS CEO Sarah Faulder.

Higher Education White Paper

Linda Bennett’s reading of this White Paper issued by DBIS in June highlights government’s need to pass on costs, although its avowed purpose is to make the student as customer the most powerful stakeholder in the HE system.  Publishers are advised to look out for third party delivery of degrees, and the stronger link between employer/vocational requirement and syllabus content. 

The PA’s View of Universal Access

APD Director Graham Taylor was interviewed by THE in August on the key issues facing academic publishers, giving a robust rebuttal of accusations that publishers have dragged their feet over open access. A sustainable, funded solution will take time to develop.   

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APD Brief June 2011

Welcome to the PA's June 2011 instalment of APD Brief

13^thFiesole Collection Development Retreat – 11-13 May, St Petersburg

Publishers were a little thin on the ground at this international offshoot of the Charleston conference (which gathers librarians together in South Carolina in November), even though it gives the chance to influence senior librarians.  The emphasis was on evolution rather than revolution now that open access seems tobe a ‘tabby cat rather than (a) lion’ according to David Worlock, and the event featured perspectives on publishing trends outside the UK and US for a change. 

Intelligent Journals Marketing – 26 May, London

A useful ALPSP seminar recently explored a topic which may not be familiar to many Brief readers - database marketing techniques.  It offered a challenge rather than a set of solutions, though case studies from RSC, BMJ and OUP showed how publishers are dealing with the practicalities.   

EC Hearing on Access to Scientific Information, Luxembourg – 30 May, Luxembourg

This public hearing heard from 20 speakers with seven minutes each, who conveyed the impression that OA to text is well on the way, and the bigger challenge of OA to data lies ahead.  This did not stop most speakers ducking the data challenge.  The process will result in a Commission White Paper to Parliament and Council by end-year, with an EC programme of work to follow.   

Journal Article Mining: Publishing Research Consortium research study - June

The question underpinning this in-depth study is:  ‘If you have too much to read, could a machine do it for you?’  It analyses the sources of requests for permission to carry out data mining, and outlines publishers’ practices, policies and plans. Permissions lie at the heart of the matter; too generous and you lose revenue; too protectionist, and you lose revenue from new products badly needed to replace old cash cows.  This study gives a solid basis for informed decisions on future policy. 

Publishers Launch Conference – 21 June, London

This PA/Publishers Launch conference gave pointers to UK publishers on how to make money out of e-books, and included a hotly-argued session on territoriality as well as a panel session on metadata given by knowledgeable and well-rehearsed participants.   

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APD Brief April 2011

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APD Brief March 2011

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