Westchester Publishing Services

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Westchester Publishing Services Launches K-12 Division

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The month of May always tends to be busy here at Westchester Publishing Services, and this year is no different. This week, we announced the addition of Kevin J. Gray to our team. Kevin will be leading our newly launched division, Westchester K-12 Publishing Services as Director, K-12 Publishing Services.

Our K-12 development and production group is a natural growth extension of the editorial and production services we have been providing to our clients for nearly 50 years. Westchester K-12 Publishing Services offers a complete range of product development services to support educational publishers. Kevin brings with him a wealth of experience from other well-known publisher services companies, along with a strong desire to deliver outstanding products and services to the K-12 educational market. We’re pleased to have someone of Kevin’s caliber to head up this important initiative for Westchester Publishing Services.

You can read more about Kevin and Westchester K-12 Publishing Services in this press release

Visit our website to learn more about the products and services available from Westchester K-12 Publishing Services, and if you’re attending the upcoming Content In Context conference later this month in Philadelphia, be sure to stop by our booth to meet Kevin.

Tim Cross, Business Development Manager at Westchester Publishing Services, will be the host of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) spring Scholarly Kitchen Webinar: The Future of Access, Authentication and Privacy, to be broadcast on May 9, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Eastern Time.

Tim is the chair of the Society for Scholarly Publishing Webinars Working Group, and works with members of the Education Committee and “chefs” (bloggers) of The Scholarly Kitchen to facilitate the webinars, determine content, and recruit moderators and speakers. SSP’S The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog aimed at bringing together differing opinions, commentary, and ideas to advance scholarly publishing and communication.

Moderator Roger C. Schonfeld, Director, Libraries and Scholarly Communication Program, Ithaka S+R, will lead a discussion with Ken Varnum, Senior Program Manager for Discovery, Delivery, and Library Analytics, University of Michigan Library and Ralph Youngen, Director, Publishing Systems Integration, American Chemical Society  to discuss 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.

Perhaps the most important lesson learned from Sci-Hub is that the current technology stack and access paradigm has proven itself to be insecure. Today, there are cooperative efforts from publishers, librarians, technology providers and other stakeholders, attempting to find solutions that will work for all parties. This webinar will look at those efforts, discuss the goals and focus on the careful balances that must be struck between identification and privacy.

To find out more information about SSP’s webinar series or to register for the May 9 Scholarly Kitchen webinar, click here

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.

“Composition is not a commodity; it’s something that matters, both to the author and the reader.”

I have just returned from the London Book Fair, where I enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with Westchester Publishing Services’ current and prospective publishing partners to learn more about their editorial and production needs, and share the ways Westchester can help simplify their processes.

According to veteran attendees, the London Book Fair this year seemed more active than usual. Publishers Weekly did a thorough job covering many of the hot topics being discussed at the conference, with articles covering subjects as diverse as publishing in times of political uncertainty, to growth in the industry. In addition, The Bookseller considered the impact of the Fair’s return to the Olympia London for the first time in over a decade.

Having a prime location next to the LBF Faculty sessions on scholarly publishing ensured the Westchester stand received a steady stream of traffic, including from prospects who may have heard from Westchester in the past, and were now able to meet with us in person. We enjoyed talking to everyone who visited our booth, whether they had a scheduled appointment or happened to drop by. We socialized online as well, posting regularly to Twitter, encouraging #LBF17 attendees to stop by and meet our new mascot, Wes T. Chester. (See photo, below.) Don’t fret if you weren’t in London though, Wes is a jet-setter and will attend BEA in New York City at the end of May!

I visit the U.K whenever I can, for work and some cultural travel as well. When I pass through Heathrow to fly home, if I have a few pounds left in my pockets I make it a point to stop by W.H. Smith’s and invest in a paperback or two to enjoy on my flight. Westchester typesets books for publishers in both the U.S. and U.K., but growing up in the States I always enjoy the slightly different tactile feel and format of a British book. One of the books I happened to pick up on this trip was one I’ve read many times, but given away all my copies of over the years – The Fellowship of The Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was fortuitous I chose this title, as the 2004 HarperCollins U.K. paperback edition contains an opening essay by Douglas A. Anderson about the evolution of Tolkien’s work from edition to edition. Anderson writes a compelling account about the history of events which occurred, from Tolkien’s manuscript initially being mishandled by its initial typesetter, to the variations that sprang up from U.S. and U.K. versions of the book over the years, with words being changed, entire sections being dropped, and other typesetting errors which naturally irritated Tolkien. In between writing his subsequent works, Tolkien spent a great deal of time annotating pages in existing editions for his publishers to incorporate into reprints. Reading of Tolkien’s struggles with this title after talking with publishers all week at the London Book Fair about the quality of Westchester’s work, brought into sharp focus something I’ve been saying for years:

“Composition is not a commodity; it’s something that matters, both to the author and the reader.”

I’m proud of the work that Westchester does to help Macmillan, W.W. Norton, Bloomsbury, ABC-CLIO, Springer Publishing, Harvard University Press, and dozens of other publishers present their content in a high quality and accurate way to their readers. Call me today at 203-658-6581, or email me at tyler.carey@westchesterpubsvcs.com to learn how Westchester Publishing Services can help improve your publications program.

Learn more about Westchester Publishing Services here.

Tim Cross, Westchester Publishing Services’ Business Development Manager, is the host of Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) 2017 webinar program. The first webinar in the six session schedule “Hiring the Next Generation of Publishing Professionals”, takes place Tuesday, March 14, at 11 am EST.

Moderated by Jessica Loayza, Web Publications Coordinator from the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the webinar is geared toward early career professionals interested in identifying the skills that will serve them in their growing careers, and the managers who look to support the professional development of their young employees.

Speakers on the panel are Meredith Adinolfi (Director of Production, Cell Press), Jeff Lewandowski (Senior Publisher, IOP Publishing), and John Rodzvilla (Graduate Program Director, Masters program in Publishing and Writing, Emerson College). As hiring managers and publishing program directors, they will discuss how they make hiring decisions, encourage and influence early career professionals, and how to make more diverse and inclusive hires.

You can learn more about SSP’s webinar program here.

To learn more about the editorial and composition services Westchester Publishing Services provides to the academic and scholarly publishing community, click here, or Contact Us.