Tag: Linda Bennett
Learning from Libraries, Libraries, Universities
Learning from Libraries – an interview with Roxanne Missingham
November 19, 2020 Gold Leaf
Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian and the Australian National University (ANU) describes what it means to her to be a librarian
Tell us a bit about your career. Did you always want to be a librarian? Where was your first job? Where did you get your library qualification?
My mother says that I wanted to be a librarian when I was in primary school! My first degree at university was a Bachelor of Science. I studied at ANU: lots of Maths and Psychology, with a minor in English.
There weren't many jobs for women in science and so I did a postgraduate qualification in librarianship at what is now the University of Canberra. I was inspired by such amazingly dedicated lecturers as Maxine Rochester and John Balnaves and was extremely fortunately to be recruited to what was essentially a graduate trainee program at the National Library of Australia.
I loved my colleagues, helping to build the library collection and the ethos of making a national difference through libraries. The diversity of work is fabulous – as are the regular challenges and opportunities.
Tell us about your present job. What do you like most about it? And least?
I have been at the Australian National Library as University Librarian for almost 9 years. It is my first job in the higher education sector. When I was interviewed (there were 9 on the panel!) my key points, as I recall, were a passion for inspiring excellence through student experience and an ability to deal with complex clients. I had been Parliamentary Librarian for 7 years. The interviewing panel thought there might be some similarities between serving members of parliament and serving academics.
At the university my portfolio includes libraries, archives, digital scholarship, the ANU Press and digital literacy. The team is amazing: we work with everyone in the university in some way. My passion is connecting people to knowledge and pretty much all aspects of this are included in the work of the Division.
I love working with my colleagues on new ways to open up access to knowledge and ideas.
Now for the confession, I would love to do less paperwork and use more of that time to work with the team!
Tell us a bit more about ANU Press, why it was set up, your own role.
ANU Press was established in 2003 and officially launched in 2004, with the aim of exploring and enabling new modes of scholarly publishing. It was Australia's first fully open access scholarly press. We have worked through various strategic changes to foster innovation in scholarly publishing, find new ways to engage with authors and students and move beyond the concept of knowledge trapped behind paywalls. We were initially focused on communicating the research of ANU scholars and have now increased the eligibility authors who may publish and steadily added other new dimensions.
I am very fortunate to be head of the division in which the ANU Press sits and to work on the Advisory Committee.
What has the pandemic meant for you? What have been its highs and lows?
Life in 2020 has been an endless parade of calamities. We have had bushfires, campus closures owing to smoke, hailstorms which destroyed library and other roofs and very many cars and then COVID-19.
I think a big high is the fantastic support within our teams for colleagues, assisting and caring for each other in times of stress. The strong team approach across the whole university has been very inspiring.
As we reach the end of the year, perhaps the two lows are having to say farewell to many staff owing to the university's downsizing; and the fact that having to endure so many disasters in such a short space of time has been wearing on the heart and soul of the community. We have not been able to engage as deeply or personally because of the time we've had to spend off campus and the move to digital communication, even though under the circumstances that was, of course, very appropriate.
What is the most challenging thing you've had to deal with in your career; and the thing that makes you most proud?
I think the most challenging matter this year has been the separation of so many staff from our team, people whose contribution to the university and division has been terrific over a sustained period. They remain part of our family but have found that financially it was the right time for them to go.
I am extremely proud of the achievements of the team in working together and keeping the heart and soul of the university alive through all the work of the division. We have created new relationships with students and academics to make the university a success in 2020.
If you look into your crystal ball, what do you think will happen to librarianship in Australia (or everywhere if you prefer) in the next 3 – 5 years?
Given the changes taking place in teaching, I think that academic librarianship will focus on contributions to education with a greater sense of partnership, driven partly by the need to foster the digital education of staff and the academic community as a whole. This also brings to the fore the imperative for greater experimentation in digital delivery, discovery and scholarship. The spirit of partnership needs to extend to our work with publishers. I think OA will mature and that new models must be supported that will have disciplinary nuances and deep library involvement.
Library education is up for major debate. The evolution of micro-credentials and new forms of skilling must focus on "snack packs" to upgrade our knowledge and build stronger partnerships with employers.
Finally linking up the GLAM sector to tackle fundamental policy issues – such as copyright – is essential
Would you mind saying a little more about your personal life – children, hobbies, etc.?
Life provides many challenges and the joy of my husband's and my life are our two grandchildren, who are aged 2 and 7 – princesses with a lot of energy. Not to forget our three grown up children! I am a keen quilter – every time I complete a quilt I swear not to buy more fabric as the stash is overtaking the spare room. My current project is a quilt for the youngest grandchild, which has an image from Totoro of May: Saski, Totoro and the two small animals are appliquéd in the middle. And the garden and chickens are calling too!
[This interview was conducted by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]
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QuoScript
QuoScript – "Whither Writing" – is launched
November 5, 2020 Gold Leaf
Linda Bennett describes QuoScript, a new publishing venture
QuoScript is a new publishing venture set up by myself and a group of colleagues who together have many years' experience of working in different roles within the publishing industry. We are primarily driven by the desire to give new authors a chance. Many publishing companies have reduced or halted their publishing programmes because of Covid; and some agents are not taking on new authors.
We have decided to accept fiction submissions only during QuoScript's first year, primarily from crime writers, to be published under the Poisoned Chalice imprint and Young Adult authors, whom we'll publish under the Tusk imprint. Later we want to branch out much more – we're interested in various kinds of non-fiction, for example, including academic monographs; and we'd like to be able to cover the whole fiction spectrum.
Building a viable supply chain for a new small publisher has been fun but challenging. We're fortunate to have the support of the Ingram group and Print Force – together they fulfil most of the main supply chain functions. Our two main supply-chain partners and two other small presses whose books we shall host will help us to achieve critical mass. We're also keen to harness new design talent to work on book jackets and typesetting.
The other two presses I mentioned are, first of all, Hope and Plum Publishing, part of SHHH media, which was set up by Stacey Haber, a talented author, playwright and TV script writer. Stacey presents her own programme on Sky Feel Good Factor TV. It is called "Girls Talk" and first airs on 7th November. She publishes a range of fiction, non-fiction and children's books. The other press is DoubleA Publishing, a Ukraine-based independent publishing company set up by Andrew Afonin, who is passionate about disseminating the work of Ukrainian authors. As QuoScript develops we'll choose other independent publishers that fit in well with our ethos, which is all about good writing. We shall welcome authors who want to write about a wide spectrum of topics and from all kinds of backgrounds; but they must be united in their ability to write powerfully and compellingly. And any publishers who partner with us must be passionately committed to all the books on their list. Initially, because our focus is on trade fiction, our first publications will be in paperback and e-book format only. Later we may commission books that really need to be made available in hardback – but that's quite a long way off.
There are details on the website about how to submit MSSs – see www.quoscript.co.uk. This month we've also launched a writing competition: see https://quoscript.co.uk/national-novel-writing-month-the-quoscript-challenge/.
Gold Leaf will provide occasional updates on QuoScript as it develops.
[Written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]
General, Students, Trends in Publishing
Is the British education system racially prejudiced?
July 1, 2020 Gold Leaf
This is a delicate topic, but as it's so much in the news at the moment, we thought we ought not to ignore it.
There is, of course, a mountain of statistics to support the assertion that our education system is stacked against people from BAME communities, but also other evidence to illustrate that black and Asian students often go on to be spectacular achievers if they succeed in being admitted to tertiary education. Usually, but not always, these students encounter less prejudice at university – probably because many universities exercise a different kind of prejudice: they are meritocracies. This may be accompanied by the strong feeling in some of the older generation of academics that all that has to be overcome is the same kind of prejudice as that of working-class undergraduates that they themselves triumphed against in the 1970s and 1980s. To muddy the waters even further, white working-class boys emerged some time ago as the group least likely to succeed academically.
It is an unquestionable fact that to get to university you have to succeed at school. If there is racial prejudice, therefore, it seems likely that this is where the problem may lie. Is racial prejudice institutionalised, perhaps covertly, in our schools?
We interviewed a senior teacher who has worked for many years in one of the UK's largest and most successful comprehensive schools. For obvious reasons, he wishes to remain anonymous, but he spoke to us with passion about this issue.
The school in question was created by the amalgamation of two grammar schools in the 1970s, after which the combined institution became comprehensive. Although the two schools had always educated pupils of different nationalities and creeds, they had been mainly white and predominantly European, as well as academically able in the conventional sense. The school immediately at that point began to enrol pupils from BAME (though this collective term had not been coined then) backgrounds as well, until eventually the school's population represented over thirty-five different home languages.
There were many difficulties at first which, although the school recognised them, were difficult to resolve. Some teachers were undoubtedly racially prejudiced or old-fashioned meritocrats who were suspicious of or impatient with people from different cultures. As time went on and these older teachers retired, the school was able to develop robust recruitment techniques which ensured that all the staff – including a growing army of non-teaching and support staff, from caretakers to teaching assistants to specialists in the education of children with identified needs to attendance and home liaison officers – were much more representative of the school's population make-up, shared the same values and agreed on how they would work with students from all backgrounds to provide each child with the support and personal resources to progress well educationally. The school considered it vital to have transparency and clarity through policies carefully constructed by consultation that embraced governors, staff, parents, children and other relevant stakeholders.
Cultural stereotyping was a more subtle problem. Well-meaning teachers and external influencers might, for example, think it a good idea to set up a steel band for black students and in fact the school experimented with this, but discovered that such a move immediately set participating pupils apart and formed them into a kind of elite. To be properly egalitarian and truly non-racist, the school needed, perhaps by deliberately accommodating particular cultural needs, to encourage BAME students to feel able, by choice, to participate in any school activity. Celebration of individual achievement became central to the approach.
Addressing behavioural issues was another important factor and the students themselves had to understand that, when they were being asked to modify their behaviour, this wasn't a reflection on their culture, but simply a request to act with courtesy and consideration for others. "At any one time, black students never formed more than five per cent of the school's total numbers – there were many more Asians – but the black students seemed to be everywhere. The lads in particular were strapping and noisily extrovert. If someone slipped and fell in the corridor, they would find it hilarious and laugh and shout and point. They had to learn to be more aware of the effect they were having on others. It was vital to develop in all pupils the capacity for empathy, rather than simply applying behavioural sanctions."
Some of these same black pupils proved to be very academically capable indeed once they understood they were valued for themselves and settled down to work. However, over time the school's own attitude towards what constituted success changed dramatically. Its roots were in the traditional grammar school system of hothousing high academic achievers and rewarding academic success, but by the 1990s its guiding principle was that every student was of equal importance and that each could achieve things which all could celebrate. Mutual kindness and mutual appreciation of talents of all kinds became its mantra. The emphasis was firmly on individual and personal needs and how those should best be met, whether they be educational, medical, cultural, religious, gender-related, social or even financial. It was clear that the school's internal communication of pupil-specific information must be first-rate, confidential and effectively applied.
Both BAME and 'Caucasian' students who attended this school are now doctors, teachers, scientists, academics, members of the police or armed forces and politicians. Some are actors, artists and singers. Others are plumbers, bricklayers, secretaries and hairdressers. Across all walks of life, many have kept in touch with each other. Some return to the school to encourage those studying there today, when the students come from even more diverse backgrounds than previously. The school is now one of the most successful comprehensive schools in the country. It is, however, the painful truth that not all UK schools have taken a similar approach. Schools with less mixed populations perhaps have not developed the expertise or felt the need to pay so much attention to the preparation of their pupils for the multi-cultural world they will enter as employees; such institutions may not have the resources, both human and material, to reflect the rich mixture of British society. Yet they have a duty to prepare their pupils not just with academic skills, but with the social capability that comes from knowledge and understanding of others and with values that will prevent any inclination to stereotype those who may seem different. As I was writing this, the announcement was made that this year's British Bookseller Awards were dominated by black female authors. Candace Carty-Williams won overall book of the year with her debut novel Queenie; Oyinkan Braithwaite won crime and thriller book of the year with My Sister the Serial Killer; and Bernardine Evaristo, joint Booker winner for Girl, Woman, Other was named Author of the Year.
Academic Publishing, Bookselling, Digital Publishing, VAT
Don't Tax Reading: the case against VAT on knowledge
June 15, 2020 June 15, 2020 Gold Leaf
The removal of VAT from electronic publications earlier this year was the triumphant culmination of a vigorous campaign that had been led by publishers, booksellers, writers, librarians, teachers and readers over many decades to protest against taxation on knowledge. Originally it was started to save print books from tax: after VAT was introduced to the UK in 1973, successive governments had cast envious eyes on the thriving book and newspaper industries and debated whether to slap this surcharge on their products, perhaps at a lower rate than for other consumer goods, as other European countries had already done. Protests began immediately; there were crises as the threat reappeared periodically, which the campaigners always won – VAT has never been imposed on printed publications in the UK – but sometimes the victory was a close-run thing.
To a significant extent, the advent of e-books hobbled the power of those watchful that the government of the day might target print books again. VAT was imposed on e-books immediately they became commercially available, because it was argued that they should be treated in the same way as the products of the music industry – records, cassettes and CDs. Publishers, especially, were worried that if they protested too loudly the government might retaliate by imposing VAT on print publications rather than removing it from electronic ones.
When Annika wrote about the freeing of electronic publications from VAT a few weeks ago, I remembered a book had been published detailing the early struggles. I have a copy and had hoped to quote from it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it then, but yesterday was finally reunited with it. Published in 1985, it's even more venerable than I thought. It was designed to be submitted to the Treasury when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and Nigel Lawson the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and commissioned by an organisation called the National Book Committee. (I've looked this up: it no longer exists, but in the foreword, contributed by its "Chairman" [sic], Baroness David, she explains that it represented "all the major organisations concerned with the production and reading of books".) It was written by Marita Evans of W H Smith and Brenda White of CPI Associates (a research organisation similar to Gold Leaf), supported by several prominent academics, including Dr Frank Fishwick, of the University of Cranfield (with whom Gold Leaf subsequently worked on a JISC report on e-books).
Don't Tax Reading: the case against VAT on knowledge is a fascinating compendium of history, economic argument, statements from prominent authors and accounts of the legal and political debates on the dissemination of knowledge that have taken place since the middle of the nineteenth century. Below are some selected quotations that seem particularly relevant.
"In 1941, in the darkest days of the Second World War, when the Government needed every penny it could get, the idea of a tax on books, on knowledge, was rejected."
"Any attempt to separate out books of 'non-educational value' for taxation would lead to absurd judgements having to be made. Fiction and poetry, for example, classical or popular, are just as important to understanding, literacy, and to our culture as serious works for formal education."
"It seems that each generation has had to fight for the independence of the written word .. if this generation is to win its round, we must use words and tactics that are relevant today. The arguments of the eighties."
"The Government record for skimping on school books is abysmal: where among every twenty young adults leaving school – not even a classroom-full – there is at least one who is effectively illiterate; where a Government that is introducing huge training programmes to make sure that school-leavers are employable in our fast-thinking, fast-technology society, is now proposing to tax the basis by which those children's minds are trained – the written word."
"The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education stated the following: 'At a time when the Government is crying out for a better-educated work force, imposing a tax on books is not only illogical, it is stark-raving mad. Further and higher education students would need an extra £1.5 million in grants to enable them to buy their books if VAT is imposed. Will the Government provide this? We think not. Students will be penalised and their access to books reduced. And those students already least able to afford books will be the hardest hit.'"
Some of these statements seem quaint to us now. Grants? Today's students should be so lucky! And in 1985 students paid no tuition fees. The £1.5 million figure given as a proportion of overall student spend on books is illuminating: in 1985 the proportion of school leavers entering Higher Education was still only approximately 15%. Most were spending – and expected to spend – more in actual amounts – i.e., not adjusted for inflation – than students expect to spend today. The concept of the UK aspiring to a "fast-thinking, fast-technology society" in 1985 may seem risible to us; but no doubt future generations will be having a similar laugh at our expense in 2055.
However, much of the information captured in these extracts raises serious questions about how much progress we've made in the intervening 35 years. The Literacy Trust says that 1 in 7 adults in the UK today has the reading age of a child of nine or lower. There is still under-investment in our schools. In 2015, Iain Duncan Smith, the then Work and Pensions Secretary and prominent member of the Cameron administration, congratulated the government because the number of children living in poverty had "dropped to 2.3 million" – "the lowest since the mid-1980s". That figure was shocking; and even more shocking was that the government thought achieving the child poverty level of thirty years before was a cause for celebration. There has been further deterioration since: the Children's Society estimates that four million children are living in poverty in 2020.
Social imbalance and educational under-achievement are of course the result of a complex mixture of factors; they can't be attributed to a single cause. Neither can a "silver bullet" be conjured to remedy them. However, enabling affordable access to knowledge in all its formats has to be the greatest single action a government can take to alleviate these ills. Let us hope that the removal of VAT from every kind of publication is permanent; but if its shadow looms again, key stakeholders must surely unite again to protect knowledge.
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General, Students
The Covid-19 crisis: views of a student
June 2, 2020 Gold Leaf
We asked Daphne van Engeland, who studies in her second year towards a BA in Digital Marketing at Coventry University about her experiences.
Please tell us a little bit about the courses and lectures you attend.
Each of my courses has two one-hour lectures and one two-hour seminar per week. The lectures can be in groups of over 100 students as some marketing courses overlap and the seminars are more interactive in smaller groups, typically around 15 students. During lectures we'd sit in a big hall and listen to the lecturer, while seminars have a more practical focus and we often have to do assignments which we present afterwards.
Which impact did Covid-19 have on your university and you?
From the end of March, Coventry University suspended all in-person teaching and assessments and then continued closing down the campus further as the situation worsened. When the announcement was made, I rebooked my flight to the Netherlands (where I am original from) that was scheduled for April to one that very same week so I could be safe at home with my family. I have been continuing to study from here.
Tell us about your experience of learning remotely.
The semester at Coventry University was already coming to an end, so I ended up not having any live remote lectures. One teacher did upload videos of the topics that he covered, which was about the coursework. We used Microsoft Teams to have feedback sessions for our coursework, which was new but very useful. I did not have any exams this semester, but from other years of my course I knew they had to complete exams in essay-style and students would have a few hours on a set day to complete them. Cheating does not really work in this case because the exams are all about showing understanding and examples.
Which challenges have affected you most?
I found it very challenging to be home all the time and get myself to do the work as the situation is stressful for me. Having set days and hours to work on coursework helped me a lot. With group work it is a big challenge that we can't go and sit down somewhere to work together. Having meetings on Microsoft Teams helps, but I noticed there were more miscommunications than we experienced in previous courseworks. Communication from lecturers differs by person, but they are mostly responsive to emails and do their best to make things work. I feel like it's important to remember this is new for them too.
Has the Library been able to support you?
The online library at Coventry University has always been quite extensive, and that helps a lot now. Luckily, we get our books at the university included in the tuition fees, so I did not need to borrow any. As I am not in the city at the moment, I unfortunately don't know if they can still provide physical books. I think they will follow the government rules and open up as soon as they are allowed to and can do so safely.
Which learning resources (books, textbooks, databases, software etc.) are you using for remote teaching? Have these changed?
My online resources often include academic articles and business reports. Those were mostly online anyway, so that has not changed a lot. The textbooks that I did need were mine already. My bank also offered a free subscription to a website of resources, which helped me find some more things I needed. What I would like is if some books came with a code to download the ebook version. I could not take all my books with me, and having them online or on my eReader would have helped me a lot.
Is there anything else you would like to say?
I think it will take a while before the large lectures will be started up again and I think that in future the university will be more prepared for situations like these. I think classes will be smaller as long as there is no vaccine and that they will keep on providing online content for those at risk of severe illness. Coventry University is moving to a new learning space as a replacement of Moodle, which will hopefully make remote learning easier. I hope that remote learning will be available even when the university opens again. I personally like being able to watch lectures at home, especially when I'm ill.
Please tell us a bit about yourself
I am from the Netherlands where I studied a few years of European Studies before moving to the UK. In my downtime I like reading and gaming. My love for gaming led me to start streaming on Twitch, which is a hobby for now but I'm hoping that it can be part of my career in the future. I have just started a marketing internship for the summer and will be going on straight to my third year at university after that.
[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]
General, Lecturers, pedagogy
The Covid-19 crisis: views of a Creative Writing lecturer
May 26, 2020 Gold Leaf
Dr Judith Heneghan, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester tells us how the Covid lockdown is affecting her work.
The University of Winchester traces its origins to a teacher training institution founded in the mid-nineteenth century. This became known as King Alfred's College, and in the late twentieth century it began to offer degrees in the humanities and performing arts, as well as education. It was awarded university status in 2005 and now consists of four main faculties: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Business, Law and Sport and Education, Health and Social Care. There are approximately 8000 students, the majority from the UK (roughly 6% are from overseas). The Creative Writing programmes are located within the Department of English, Creative Writing and American Studies and offer a range of single and combined honours degrees at the levels of BA, MA and PhD.
Please tell us a little bit about the disciplines you teach in and the courses you teach. How many students are in each course/lecture, the make-up of the student body. How did you typically teach before the Covid-19 crisis?
I teach Creative Writing at undergraduate and Masters levels, and also supervise a couple of PhD students. Creative Writing as a discipline is long-established at Winchester. Cohorts are a mix of home and international students, pursuing full-time or part-time study. Classes usually take the form of classroom-based seminars for groups of between 14 and 28 students. The writing workshop is a key component of our approach and features peer critiquing and small-group discussion.
Please describe the restrictions that have been applied at your city and your institution as a result of the coronavirus. When were they first put in place? Are your offices closed? If so, are you and your colleagues working from home? How do you do this in practice?
From 23 March onwards, when the nationwide 'lockdown' began, the University closed to all but essential personnel. I had already begun to work from home and therefore continued to do so. I arranged to pick up a monitor from my office so that I could have two screens set up on my dining room table, which has now become my 'home office'. Email traffic has not been much changed by lockdown, but I have been using my mobile phone to a much greater extent, mainly to communicate with colleagues.
Have you been teaching remotely, and if so, for how long? Is it a new experience for you and the students? Which software do you use and is it working well? What about exams?
The timing of semesters at Winchester and the nature of Creative Writing as a subject means that I have not yet had to do very much remote teaching. I had only two weeks of teaching left before classes concluded and I was able to deliver these sessions via Powerpoint presentations, notes and by setting up discussion threads on the University's intranet. Tutorials were conducted via email, Zoom, MS Teams or phone calls, depending on the student's own preference. All of these have worked well as temporary measures. Creative Writing students don't sit exams, and they have been submitting assignments online for the past two years. My time at the moment is mainly taken up with marking, which I can do at home. However, when the new academic year starts in September much greater adjustment will be needed. The extent of this will depend on the levels of social distancing restrictions in place by then. We may have to accommodate blended or online delivery for a longer period of time.
Which challenges have affected you most? How have you dealt with them? What are you most proud of having achieved during the emergency? What would you say are the greatest challenges that your students are facing? How do they communicate with you? We'd be very grateful if you could add some short anecdotes here!
Possibly the greatest challenge is the level of uncertainty we all have to cope with, especially when I look forward to September. Concluding the current academic year has been relatively straightforward for me personally, and students and staff have been remarkably flexible under the circumstances. Face time and video conferencing have created some welcome camaraderie as pets and family members make unscheduled appearances! However, the past few weeks have unquestionably been stressful for many of the students. One can only imagine their anxiety about current and future jobs, assignments, and access to resources and technology, and we'll be doing all we can to support them through these uncertain times. Communication between lecturers and students is less of an issue than peer-to-peer learning and contact, which is very important because of the way our courses are structured, but also for socialising and networking; and this will continue to be a significant challenge until social distancing measures are eased.
Have you had access to the library? Are there ways in which the library can provide more help at the present time? Have they already helped – for example, by providing access to more online content, offering scanning services, etc.?
My understanding is that the university is indeed providing access to more online content etc.
Please give any further information you would like to add. What do you think will happen when people gradually go back to university? Will some things have changed permanently? Can some good have come out of the crisis and its impact on the ways in which people work – e.g., by using distance learning more innovatively, being more creative with the development of teaching and learning materials? What are the mid- to long-term impacts on teaching likely to be?
I think it is inevitable that online learning will increase. Necessity will drive innovation across all subjects and perhaps this in turn will extend to innovation in the way we offer traditional face-to-face learning and teaching, as the 'blended' classroom becomes more familiar to us all.
I came to academia quite late, after an early career in publishing, having brought up four children. In 2000 I studied for an MA in Writing for Children at the University of Winchester, and when my first children's books were published in 2005 I was invited back to teach. I was Director of the Winchester Writers' Festival for six years, and now divide my time between lecturing and writing. My novel for adults, Snegurochka, was published by Salt in 2019.
Academic Publishing, Digital Publishing, Open Access, Trends in Publishing
From Open Access to Open Research: a summary of developments
May 18, 2020 May 18, 2020 Gold Leaf
As the OA movement picked up momentum, there were some watershed moments in the UK: the publication of the Finch Report (2012), which – to the surprise of many – chose the Gold "author pays" model (in which the author or his or her institution pays an APC, or Article Processing Charge) over the Green free-to-view-after-an-embargo-period model; the ruling by the major funding bodies, including RCUK and Wellcome, that outputs of the research they fund (journal articles and underpinning data) must be published OA and the content made available for re-use; and the requirement of REF 21 that authors' final peer-reviewed and accepted article manuscript submissions must be placed in an Open Access repository. The last of these supports the Green OA model, but without the embargo element.
Developments in Europe were soon to surpass the UK in ambition. The principal research funder in the Netherlands, the VSNU, began to mandate a transition to full OA via "transformative agreements" with major publishers in 2016. In 2017, the Swedish government issued its Government Appropriation Directive to the National Library of Sweden (leading member of the BIBSAM consortium that co-ordinates library spending across the country) that "all scientific publications resulting from research financed with public funds shall be published immediately open access", with a deadline of 2026 for "transitions" with all publishers to be fully realised; also in 2017, Projekt DEAL, a German consortium of libraries and research institutes, set a target of revising licence agreements with major publishers to "bring about significant changes in content access and pricing" of e-journals. Denmark, meanwhile, remains committed to Green Open Access, as do some countries around the world, including the United States until recently (though without consistent policy or a mandate).
Despite all this activity, some major research funders across Europe and the UK believed that progress towards attaining full and complete Open Access to their funded outputs was moving too slowly. Concerns over "double-dipping" and the lack of take-up of initiatives such as membership schemes and the "block grants" from UK HEIs, compounded a view that publishers were profiteering from taxpayer-funded research that ought to be open for all. There is much general recognition that publishers do add value, but the margins and perceived behaviours of some have become polarising elements in negotiations with their stakeholders. The hard reality of adverse macroeconomic factors for higher education has fused with the ideal of democratisation of knowledge (propounded by groups like Unpaywall) to challenge the industry to change – although without concomitant change to the academic incentives that drive ever-increasing research publishing in the first place.
In 2018, the EU Commission created cOAlition S and launched Plan S, which set out ten main principles intended to achieve full and immediate Open Access by 2021: "…all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo." Key tenets of Plan S are that research must be available via free online access immediately upon publication; be free for sharing and re-use under (ideally) the CC-BY copyright licence; and that publication in hybrid journals is not acceptable unless covered by a transformative agreement.
UK Research & Innovation, allied with cOAlition S, is consulting on its own very similar recommendations at present, with a 2022 compliance target. Separately, the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) of the President of the United States appears to be preparing a similar position. Some academic publishers felt that Plan S merely formalised the goal to which they were already working, although bringing forward the deadline; others, including the largest, have resisted the mandate, which has led to disputes and ongoing battles that these publishers probably can't win.
A benefit of the pressure being applied by funders is that the most enterprising publishers are considering real openness throughout the research cycle – often of more actual value to researchers than the formal published output – and trying to add value in supporting academic dialogue, early findings, failed experiments, supporting datasets and more.
Open Access for books has also been experimented with, at first either by small publishers – often new university presses set up for this specific purpose – or via open funding platforms such as Knowledge Unlatched; later by the larger academic publishers themselves. In the UK, the 2027 REF requirements have mandated Green open deposit of accepted book manuscripts; UKRI considers them "in scope" from 2024; and the National Endowment for the Humanities is approaching both authors and their publishers with offers of grant funding to turn monographs OA retrospectively. Nevertheless, a viable OA business model for books does not yet exist.
The conundrum that academic publishers have had to address is how to fulfil the requirements of the mandates, treat their librarian customers fairly, and develop a sustainable business model to ensure their own survival. The "transitional model" developed – which has many variants – is commonly called "Read and Publish". It involves signing an agreement with an individual library or consortium that monies formerly supplied to the publisher for subscriptions and/or APCs should be combined in a single payment that allows readers access to the publisher's content and pays for new articles to be published at the same time. Ideally, no new money will be introduced into the system, though if a per-article APC model predominates, both cost and complexity will inevitably increase. Some publishers allow unlimited new articles to be published within this payment scheme; others put a cap on the number the payment will cover.
The model is simple in principle but needs much work by both publishers and libraries to make it work, and will only be successful if a) it really effects transformation and b) if the author experience is at least as smooth as it was in the old world of subscription funding. There are plenty of issues besides this to address: transitional agreements are not intended to last forever – basing payment on historic spending will not work in the long term; funding streams across institutions are not centralised; big research libraries may not be able to publish all accepted articles if there is a cap on the "publish" element of the deal – and if this happens, who will decide which articles to publish?; metadata capture and workflows are still painfully inadequate; crucially, many academics are still unaware, or shaky on the detail, of what it means to publish Open Access and need a great deal of support from librarians and publishers in the form of workshops, online tutorials, etc.; and some confuse OA publishing by reputable mainstream publishers with the "cowboy" publications that proliferated after APCs were accepted as a form of payment, and are therefore hostile to the concept.
Above all, the model must be adopted globally in order to succeed. There may be enough money in the system overall, but its distribution will differ radically under R&P, which has implications for the whole ecosystem. China and the USA lead the world in the quantity of their research output. Neither has a national OA mandate yet – though some American institutions have now signed Read and Publish deals. The consumer nations, which publish less than they read, should end up paying less – but how will publishers support research outputs from the developing world? In the long term, publishers can't run with two major business models – i.e., subscriptions + APCs and Read and Publish. They need the whole world to get behind the Read and Publish model. Will this happen?
[Written by Linda Bennett]
This article was first published by Bookbrunch on 13th May 2020.
Tagged Linda Bennett1 Comment
Bookselling, Deutsch, Services
"Buy local" during Covid-19 – How German booksellers encourage local shopping online; and what is happening in the UK
April 20, 2020 Gold Leaf
Since the 18th of March 2020, all non-essential shops in Germany have been closed owing to the current Covid-19 crisis. Like everywhere else in the world, this affects small shops in particular and even though many offer click & collect or delivery services for their products, the danger of the vast majority of customers simply buying from one of the online giants is incredibly high. Small shops (with less than 800 m3 of shop floor) and all bookshops are now due to reopen from today, but they will have to operate under strict hygiene rules and the expected footfall will remain low.
To inform the consumers about their options and ways to support local shops, the German bookshop chains Thalia Mayersche and Osiander teamed up and started the initiative www.shopdaheim.de (which translates into "shop at home") about 10 days after the closures. Initially, it was a database of about 1,000 bookshops – you are able to search by postcode or place name and see all the local shops that offer some kind of delivery or collection service locally. Within 2 weeks, nearly all of the 3,000 bookshops in the country joined and now – after 4 weeks – 10,000 shops in 41 industries are listed. The site experiences more than 100,000 views a day (at peak times up to half a million) and has become such a success that recently the Austrian equivalent www.shopdaheim.at was launched.
The site still has its main focus on bookshops, but includes shops that sell confectionary, cosmetics, baby products, flowers, perfumes, fashion, sports and more. Several chains (Intersport, DHL, Douglas perfumes, the drug store chain DM and Blume2000, a flower shop chain) are contributing to the marketing and PR of the site whilst the original founders have invested a 6-digit Euro sum into the site. Currently, the listing of a shop is free of charge, but it might be possible that the display of a shop logo or inclusion into marketing campaigns will become chargeable in future – the owners are planning to keep the platform running; after all, local shops having a shared platform to encourage consumers to shop locally is a good idea at the best of times.
The UK is less fortunate than Germany. Not only are all the bookshops closed, but some of the distributors have closed down their operations and furloughed their staff. Gardners, one of the UK's leading book wholesalers and distributors, closed before the end of March and Amazon is no longer stocking new titles, as it says it must focus on storing and distributing more essential products. It's still possible to buy some print titles direct from online booksellers such as Waterstones and some publishers are also selling print direct – Bloomsbury, for example, has a well-established online ordering service for both print and electronic books which so far it has continued to maintain. Many online sellers are also making extra promotional efforts to sell e-books; it will be interesting to see if this results in another spike in e-book purchase, which has long plateaued at around 10% of all sales in the trade sector.
Libraries are also closed but also promoting their digital services. The British Library has contacted all its members to explain how to access its huge resource of online collections. Some public libraries are still making their online collections available, but others have closed down their services altogether.
Academic libraries in the UK are also all closed, but their staff are still working from home and making Herculean efforts to provide as extensive a service as possible to all their patrons – students, lecturers and researchers. Most have built up extensive online collections over the past twenty years which have now become an even more valuable resource than they were prior to the lockdown, but users still need support when accessing these and help in finding exactly the materials they want.
When the lockdown is relaxed, it is difficult to predict which businesses will become casualties. In recent years, the UK has enjoyed a resurgence of both small independent bookshops and independent literary publishers. Many of these businesses are run on a shoestring, propelled by enthusiasm and love for books rather than any more concrete financial backing. Our culture would be the poorer if we were to lose them, so it will be worth making an extra effort to support them when they are able to trade again. In the meantime, we could do worse than set up our own version of "Shopdaheim" in the UK.
[Written by Annika Bennett and Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]
Tagged Annika Bennett, Linda BennettLeave a comment
Gold Leaf blog
In this blog, Gold Leaf updates about news, events and other interesting topics in the world of Academic Publishing.
Librarians: the quiet and unsung professionals battling Covid every day December 17, 2020
A holistic approach to sustainability – Oekom Verlag December 4, 2020
Learning from Libraries – an interview with Roxanne Missingham November 19, 2020
Sustainability I – FSC certification November 12, 2020
QuoScript – "Whither Writing" – is launched November 5, 2020
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