I read the report. The Association of University Presses finds that University Presses are providing great value and that their average cost per book is 20,000$. Of these, 15,000$ are covered by subsidies and the rest via prints sales etc.

They report 50% of book costs are overhead and acquisition. Work directly related to the creation of a book…[Read more]

OPERAS is hiring a Community Manager to facilitate community consultation and engagement related to Open Access eBook Usage (OAeBU) data.  https://www.operas-eu.org/calls-and-job-opportunities/community-manager-oa-ebook-usage-oaebu-data-trust/

A significant new report has come out from TOME: Report: The Cost to Publish TOME Monographs https://aupresses.org/news/report-the-cost-to-publish-tome-monographs/

I am looking forward to reading this closely and suspect it might generate some discussion! I’d be interested to hear any thoughts anybody has.

ACLS is hiring a Project Manager, Higher Education Initiatives: Publishing Initiatives (2-year term) based in New York, to ‘focus on instigating changes in the book publishing ecosystem that would strengthen the goals of the mission-driven constituencies involved, while addressing the risk factors and constituents’ concerns that currently stand a…[Read more]

Hi all,

Sharing on behalf of the IFLA Library Publishing Special Interest Group: The IFLA Library Publishing Special Interest Group is seeking proposals for 5-minute lightning talks to be presented at its Open Session at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2022 in Dublin, Ireland.

 
Possible topics may include, but are not limited…[Read more]

Open Position: The OAPEN Foundation is looking for a Project Manager to help with promoting and supporting the transition to open access for academic books. Responsibilities include participation in project activities, supporting technical operations, services and assisting with financial administration of the foundation. Full-time…[Read more]

Fantastic news!

Hi all, Tom, Agata and I are pleased to announce that the OABN has become an OPERAS Special Interest Group (SIG), and as such it is now formally supported by OPERAS, the European Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the European Research Area.

The OABN will continue to…[Read more]

I’ve been doing some more digging into accessibility resources and have found the following:

– Improving the Accessibility of your Mainstream Digital Content, which seems to be a wealth of resources from the Inclusive Publishing group, coordinated by the DAISY consortium: https://inclusivepublishing.org/about-the-inclusive-publishing-hub/
– The…[Read more]

At OBP we have adapted our InDesign-based workflow to produce accessible EPUBs. So far it has been a mixture of adopting some new typesetting practices and doing some post-production work. It’s still a work in process, if anyone has comments on this I am all ears!

We have recently discovered that pdfs produced with LaTeX have a certain treatment that does not interface well with common screenreaders for visually impaired people. Fixing this is actually a major project and will get pretty gory. We will not have the funds available at LangSci to do this on our own, but we might apply for some funding. If you…[Read more]

This channel was set up after the Open Cafe discussion on the accessibility of OA books, at which a number of links were shared, so I will drop them here for future reference:

– EU directive on accessibility, coming into force in 2025: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32019L0882
– OAPEN VPAT:…[Read more]

NEW COLLECTION: Myself and François van Schalkwyk of African Minds have put together a collection of OA book publisher business models, with contributions from a number of presses. The collection is here: https://oabooksbusinessmodels.pubpub.org/

We’re keen to add to it, so if your press might be interested in contributing, take a look at the…[Read more]