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Westchester Publishing Services Sponsoring The Bookseller Conferences

By Guest Blogger – Tyler M. Carey

Westchester Publishing Services continues to grow its presence in the U.K. market, and has a tremendous amount of interest from U.K.-based publishers at this time. I believe one of the reasons why is because we have been attending more industry trade shows and conferences relevant to the U.K. trade and scholarly markets, including London Book Fair in March. The energetic atmosphere along with the positive reception we received while we were there confirmed our belief that we need to be at more conferences and trade shows in the U.K.

I’m excited to announce Westchester Publishing Services is teaming up with The Bookseller – London’s venerable publication for the publishing industry – for two important conferences during the second half of 2017. We are proud to be a sponsor of both The Bookseller Children’s Conference, taking place 26 September, as well as the FutureBook digital publishing conference, being held on 1 December.

The opportunity to be a significant part of these two conferences was one we simply couldn’t pass up.   We are looking forward to meeting many dynamic publishing professionals at both of these conferences, learning more about the editorial and production challenges publishers are encountering, and helping them to identify beneficial solutions.

If you are planning to attend either of these shows, or would be interested in meeting with members of the Westchester team in England during the dates surrounding these shows, we would love to meet with you! Please contact me to schedule an appointment, at: tyler.carey@westchesterpubsvcs.com or call me at: +1 203 658 6581.

Michael Jon Jensen and Bill Foley in the Westchester Publishing Services booth at AAUP 2017

By Guest Blogger Nicole Tomassi

If it seems like we’ve done a lot of blog posts lately about conferences, you’re right!  Westchester’s schedule is filled with numerous events, particularly from April to June, because we understand the importance of keeping up with developments impacting the publishing community. One of the last meeting dates on Westchester’s calendar before summer begins, was the AAUP 2017 Conference, which took place June 11-13.

A Capital Trip

Bill Foley, Key Accounts Manager, Susan Baker, Director, Editorial Services, and Michael Jon Jensen, Director, Technology traveled to Austin, TX for the Association of  American University Presses Annual Meeting. I asked them to share their insights with me, and all three expressed a significant amount of optimism about the current and future prospects for university presses. This was further affirmed by the presence of AAUP’s newest member, University of Cincinnati Press, the first university press to be launched in several years. PW also noted the positive atmosphere of the conference in this article about the vitality of university presses.

Our team hit the ground running, with Susan and Michael attending the opening banquet, featuring a keynote address given by Dan Rather. According to Susan, Rather commented on some of the serious challenges facing the world and the nation, urging attendees not to be complacent. What followed was a pep talk praising the work of university presses and encouraging those in the room to persevere in their careers. Michael also came away feeling “quite inspired by the thoughtful words”, Dan Rather delivered to the audience at Sunday night’s event.

Choice sessions

AAUP always offers up a variety of interesting topics for attendees to learn about in each day’s sessions, and the trio made sure to be at as many as their schedules allowed.

Bill sat in on the Scholarly Publishing Services and University Press session, where the panelists discussed publishing scholarly works —Ph.D. thesis’s and personal endeavors based on their field of study—as a way to provide publishing opportunities to the university community which would not normally be available. Bill observed this approach is gaining traction at a number of schools, and believes it is a great resource for the new author who wants to get published. Susan attended the session previewing the next edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is due out in September. New ways of accessing information create the need to correctly cite electronic sources and open access materials, and Susan also noted there will be interesting, and potentially controversial changes to some long-held grammatical conventions. According to Michael, the sessions capturing his attention covered the state of “artificial intelligence” and its implications, as well as a fascinating session involving “comment” and “annotation” capabilities on public documents, using tools like Hypothes.is and others. Whether for classroom use, or for a public intellectualism, these new options are just beginning to make themselves felt in the scholarly environment, and Michael believes they could well become very important in the years ahead, especially when paired with ORCID and other standards-based authority metric tools.

Kickin’ back, Austin style

In keeping with Tuesday’s closing plenary theme on the importance of happiness in the workplace, Bill, Michael, and Susan made sure to take time for some leisurely activities as well. Michael shared with me, “There were two evenings of making music. We had guitars, a baritone ukulele, a violin, and many voices joining in. Smartphones often provided the lyrics, and sometimes the chords if necessary, for Beatles, Dylan, CCR, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and plenty of others.”  Susan made sure to see Austin’s famous emergence of the million-plus Mexican Free-tailed bats from the Congress Avenue Bridge (a.k.a. Ann W. Richards Bridge) at dusk. In her words, “It was quite literally awesome. The bridge was about a block from the hotel, and the bats started coming out at about 9:45 in the evening. Not only do you see them swarming out, but as they fan out over the river, you can see clouds of them off in the distance as they go off to feed on Austin’s insects.” Bill enjoyed some of Austin’s famous ‘cue, and banished any calories thinking about sticking around by taking part in the 5K morning run organized by AAUP.

With AAUP a wrap, we’re taking the summer off from conferences, but will be hitting the road again this September.  In the meantime, Bill, Susan, Michael, and the rest of our staff will be keeping busy ensuring the projects we are working on for our clients are progressing smoothly.  Be sure to check back here periodically, where I’ll be posting topical content, and head over to our Events page to see where Westchester plans to be next.

-NT

 

 

 

 

Plugging in: Insights from the CSE and SSP 2017 Annual Meetings – by Guest Blogger Tim Cross

As I mentioned in last month’s blog post, spring is a busy time of year for meetings.  I’m a firm believer in the importance of plugging in and recharging, and my recent travels to both coasts for important conferences within the scholarly and scientific communities allowed me to connect with colleagues, peers, and the pulse of current trends in scholarly publishing.

I was in San Diego in late May to attend the Council for Science Editors conference in San Diego, where as co-chair of the Mentorship Committee along with Ken Heideman, I had the privilege of launching the new CSE Mentorship Program. This initiative is designed to help meet the needs of members seeking opportunities for growth and knowledge-sharing in scholarly publishing and editing. Interested individuals are paired with a mentor who will provide guidance through a combination of group activities, webinars, phone calls, and in-person visits over a one-year period. Feedback and recommendations will be gathered from all participants to make further refinements to the program. I look forward to seeing how the mentors and mentees will benefit from their participation in this exciting collaboration.

At the end of May, I traveled to Boston for the Society for Scholarly Publishing conference. While there, I moderated a session with panelists Anna Jester and Michael Jon Jensen about the evolving needs of publishers in the 21st Century, and the role service providers such as Westchester Publishing Services have in striking the proper balance as a partner with our publisher clients. The session was well received and there were thoughtful questions posed by the attendees.

Conference Topics in Common

There were a number of important topics covered at both meetings, from varying perspectives. The most significant highlights for me were:

  • The pervasiveness of piracy and the challenges that libraries and publishers face in fighting piracy, protecting researcher privacy, and streamlining access to content at institutions while balancing concerns for copyright and the potential for data breaches
  • The emergence of open access monographs and other innovations in scholarly book publishing that work toward aligning this channel of publication with research and academic journals
  • The need for agreed-upon standards and cross-industry collaboration between stakeholders in the management of data repositories and publication, metadata, persistent identifiers, and funding and Open Access requirements
  • Ongoing trends in Open Access journals, peer review, publication ethics, revenue models, and other aspects of the scholarly publishing endeavor that continue to be front-and-center issues of importance and interest to attendees

My colleagues and I realize the importance of active engagement with the scholarly community.  By having regular conversations, meetings, and involvement at conferences, a service provider like Westchester Publishing Services is able to better understand the challenges and goals publishers are contending with, allowing us to be a more effective partner in helping them fulfill their mission.

If you attended either the CSE or SSP conference, I’d love to hear from you. Which speeches or sessions did you find the most helpful and informative for you? Drop me an email at: tim.cross@westchesterpubsvcs.com to let me know. Also take a moment to visit our Events page to see the conferences Westchester Publishing Services participates in throughout the year, and if you think there are ones we should be adding to our schedule, contact us!

 

 

Scholarly Publishing Perspectives: Recap of the NISO and STM Meetings

– by Guest Blogger Tim Cross –

In the community of Scholarly Publishing, April and May are often called the conference season, and several high profile conferences are sometimes lightheartedly referred to as the “rodeo circuit.” While the travel can be grueling, particularly for those who are traveling to the US from abroad, many of my colleagues see these conferences as a critical annual ritual, given the intense concentration of educational and networking opportunities, as well as important industry announcements. This year is no exception.

In late April, I attended both a NISO Live Event on XML for Standards Publishers and the STM Annual US Conference in Washington, DC. Below are a few of the noteworthy developments which came out of these two conferences:

The NISO (National Information Standards Organization) meeting was held at the Library of Congress on April 24. It was helpful in articulating the value of XML workflows and deliverables for standards publishers. Several key topics were covered, including the importance of structure versus display, production efficiency, interoperability, and the need for a standards format that allows content to be more easily monetized and repurposed for a variety of print and digital deliverables.  Another important component of the meeting was the announced launch of the new NISO-STS, which has now been released for public comment. The goal of the new STS (Standard Tag Suite) is to provide “a common XML format that standards developers, publishers, and distributors can use to publish and exchange full-text content and metadata of standards.”

Following the NISO event, I traveled across town to the STM Annual US Conference at the National Press Club, where this year’s theme was “The Decade of The Researcher.” A big topic this year was Artificial Intelligence (AI), and how AI, combined with human intelligence, can increase the efficiency and accuracy of everything from peer review and fraud detection, to efficiency in research. Other topics included the reproducibility crisis, current gaps and future needs of researchers, fostering global scientific collaboration, trends in peer review, block chain technology, and a panel on the STM Tech Trends 2021. The most engaging topic for me was a discussion of the RA21 initiative. We will be hearing a lot more about this in the days to come. Resource Access for the 21st Century (RA21) is a “joint STM – NISO initiative aimed at optimizing protocols across key stakeholder groups, with a goal of facilitating a seamless user experience for consumers of scientific communication.” In other words, how can the scholarly community solve the challenges facing researchers and publishers as they wrestle with the design of authentication protocols that can both grant access to content and protect privacy?

Which conferences and meetings will you be attending to learn more about the challenges and opportunities in scholarly publishing that interest or concern you the most? As the conference season continues, the next few weeks will find me at the Council of Science Editors (CSE) Annual Meeting starting May 19 in San Diego, followed by the Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting on May 31 in Boston. Westchester Publishing Services will be hosting a session on May 31 at SSP, get more details here.

If your “rodeo circuit” includes either CSE or SSP, drop me an email at tim.cross@westchesterpubsvcs.com to arrange a convenient time to meet. I’d welcome the opportunity to have a discussion with you about the ever-evolving trends in scholarly communication and publishing, and the role that Westchester Publishing Services can play in supporting the mission of your organization.

Conference season is underway in the publishing industry, and Westchester Publishing Services is pleased to share that Tim Cross, Business Development Manager, will be attending the NISO Live Connections Event, as well as the International STM Conference, both of which are taking place in Washington D.C.

The focus of the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) Live Connections Event on Monday, April 24, 2017 is the topic of XML for Standards Publishers. The event features several speakers from the publishing and information technology fields, discussion panels, and a Q&A session.

The International STM Conference takes place April 25-27, 2017. The Society Day kicks off the conference on Tuesday, April 25, and the scholarly community will review common issues, challenges and opportunities. The key topics that will be focused on, are Research Literacy and Science Communication, Operational Excellence, and Selecting & Managing Vendors. STM’s Annual US Conference starts at the conclusion of the Society Day on Tuesday afternoon, and continues through Thursday, April 27. The conference theme is The Future Decade of the Researcher. Presenters and panels will discuss and review different ways the scholarly publishing community can better meet the current and future needs of researchers.

Tim is looking forward to seeing our clients and prospective partners at these upcoming events, and discussing current trends in the scholarly publishing space.  If you would like to schedule some time with Tim at either conference to discuss your publications program, please Contact Us. We’ll be attending several other conferences throughout the year – see Where is Westchester in 2017.