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Autumn 2024 Publishing Industry Conferences and Events

Society for Scholarly Publishing

October 9, 2024

by Tyler M. Carey

The past several weeks have seen myself, Hugh Shiebler (Director, Client Solutions), and Julie Willis (Editorial Director, Westchester Publishing Services UK) visiting conferences and events that provided guidance and direction on the global book and journal industries.

Bearded man standing next to a conference table at IPG Autumn Conference with a roller banner to the side of the table.Julie and I represented Westchester Publishing Services at the Independent Publishers’ Guild (UK) IPG Autumn Conference in London on Tuesday the 17th of September. The Autumn Conference is an annual must-attend show for Westchester, allowing us to meet with our clients and business partners in the UK trade, academic, and educational publishing spaces, as well as see our partners from Ingram and other businesses for which we support mutual clients. (Learn more about our ePub conversion work on behalf of Ingram Publisher Services clients, and our work on behalf of IngramSpark authors) The topics of accessibility and AI were top of mind for many of the attendees at IPG, as was the topic of the EUDR (more about that in the BMI section below) and changes in the distribution space. Simon Mellins was one of the draws on the topic of accessibility, covering the impact of the EAA and navigating best practices on creating accessible epubs right from the start (‘born accessible’ as some call the practice), and managing the backlist. Westchester continues to collate industry best practices on navigating the EAA on our microsite about ePub accessibility.

Woman with shoulder length blonde hair and bearded, bespectacled man standing next to each other, wearing formal evening attire.Following this, Julie and I represented Westchester at the Stationers’ Company’s Autumn Livery Dinner, where we had the opportunity to meet with a number of our publishing clients and talk with members of the communications industries in software, journalism, and other overlapping industries. We’re an active participant in Stationers’ Company events, due to the way they bring together a number of these different threads of businesses supporting content, and their deep history, tying back to when the Company was the inventor of the concept of Copyright in the UK.

Shakespeare Folio opened to two handwritten pages.The archivist of the Company was gracious enough to show me and another American member some treasures from the Company’s archives the morning after the event, including this page from their copyright register (volume Liber D) — with this page showing the registration for Shakespeare’s First Folio on November 8, 1623.

Screen reading Book Manufacturing Mastered on a wall next to a man speaking from a podium to a seated audience. The Book Manufacturers Institute conference — Book Manufacturing Mastered — was held in Boston on October 1, and brought together a blend of printers, paper suppliers, manufacturers, publishers, and vendors. The focus of topics was less on the editorial and production matters of accessibility and AI that seemed to be the main threads at IPG and SSP (see below), but instead focused on the impact of an East Coast Longshoreman’s strike and the fragility of the supply chain, as well as the EUDR’s regulations about tracking the source of paper and pulp used in printing to prevent deforestation. Panels including MIDLAND’s Bill Rojack (a former panelist on a Westchester Publishing Services webinar), Jim Milliot (editor emeritus of Publishers Weekly), and BMI’s Matt Baehr (also formerly on a Westchester Publishing Services webinar) talked through these topics, as well as the overarching topics of expanding staffing and improving communications with clients within the segments of the industry most directly represented at the conference. Within days of the conference, the strike wrapped up and the impact of EUDR on business processes had been granted more time through a one year delay.

Title screen for SSP Regional Meeting in Washington, DC October 1, 2024While I was in Boston, Hugh Shiebler attended Society for Scholarly Publishing’s “New Directions in Scholarly Publishing” conference, held in Washington, DC, addressing the interests of the academic publishing and journal publishing industries. A number of the discussion threads, both in formal panels as well as in sidebar conversations with clients and at roundtables, directly overlapped with ways Westchester plays a role in helping our clients navigate their editorial and production needs. The impact of Wiley ceasing development on eXtyles opened up dialogue about alternative methods for handling citations in academic content – an editorial task that can be cumbersome for staff and freelancer editors if not handled systemically. Westchester’s capabilities in this area served as a basis for a lot of discussion with publishers about ways they can avoid the impact of this risk in the space. Other topics that seemed to resonate throughout the two day conference were the risks and opportunities with AI, and the shortage of peer reviewers – as well as alternate models for publication and peer review.

Westchester continues to expand our capabilities to support the changing needs of publishers across markets, including adding to our editorial and production capabilities, exploring alternative uses for publishing technology to help create efficiencies for both us and our clients, and improving our own efficiency in creating accessible ePub files to help solve the budgetary risk of converting large backlists to comply with the European Accessibility Act. Increasingly, we’re helping our 600+ publishing partners with content development, illustration, design, specific editorial and production tasks that are slowing down their staff in-house, as well as wider packaging needs like handling books from copyediting through to final files during peaks of the year. Contact us today to discuss any of the trends referenced in the above conference summaries, as well as your own particular challenges that are either driving up your costs or slowing down your workflow. Let’s talk soon about how Westchester can help you get your books to market on time and under budget.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News, Services Tagged With: Book Manufacturers Institute, conferences, EAA, EUDR, Independent Publishers Guild, Ingram Publisher Services, Society for Scholarly Publishing, Stationers' Company

October 9, 2023

by Hugh Shiebler, Director, Client Solutions

Hugh ShieblerAs Alvin Toffler wrote over fifty years ago, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” The ever-quickening pace of change – and the necessity of adapting to that change – was a main theme of the New Directions in Scholarly Publishing Seminar, held October 4-5, 2023 and hosted by the Society for Scholarly Publishing. I attended both days of this year’s seminar, titled “Navigating the Shifting Sands: Managing Disruptions in Scholarly Communications.” The timeliness and depth of the presentations was matched by the quality of the questions asked, resulting in a lively dialogue.

picture of Society of Scholarly Publishing conference attendees sitting at tables in a conference room, looking at pulldown screens containing information about a session topic.Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) threaded through most of the presentations. Sessions such as “New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research Publishing” and “Authorship in the Age of AI” emphasized embracing new technologies as tools without compromising one’s values or losing touch with the human elements that make scholarly publishing what it is. Dr. Rebecca Brendel, the Director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, delivered the keynote address, “New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research and Publishing.” Dr. Brendel reminded all of us that integrity in research depends upon the integrity of individual researchers, administrators, and publishers. And, that core values such as honesty and transparency will be even more critical as AI continues to pervade the research and publication processes. Following the keynote address, Simone Taylor, the Publisher of the American Psychiatric Association, moderated a discussion with Dr. Brendel.

You may have seen our recent blog post on AI or my colleague’s appearance on a recent podcast discussing our view on how to integrate it into publishing workflows. We’re excited about the potential to continue expanding our offerings and ways we can help publishers.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News Tagged With: academic publishing, AI, artificial intelligence, conference, publishing, research, scholarly publishing, Society for Scholarly Publishing, SSP

December 12, 2022

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

headshot of Tyler CareyAs 2022 comes to a close, and many of us are in the midst of more holiday travel than we’ve done in years, it occurs to me that 2023 may be a year more like the pre-pandemic business years than we have seen in a while. Attendance was up at Frankfurt this past year, our clients are increasingly having in-person meetings with our teams, and as I’m finalizing my 2023 budget for my sales team we have more conferences planned than in any year since 2019.

Where are you going to be in 2023? Is there a chance you’ll be at any of the following conferences? If so, please Contact Us to let us know.

Where Westchester’s going to be:
  • Home and our Offices – Zoom whenever you like!
  • Digital Book World (DBW), January 16-18, 2023
  • Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC), January 23-26,2023
  • BETT UK, March 29-31, 2023
  • ASU/GSV, April 17-19, 2023
  • London Book Fair, April 18-20, 2023
  • Society for Scholarly Publishing, May 31- June 2, 2023
  • American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), August 5-8, 2023
  • Frankfurt, October 19-23, 2023

The Westchester team would love to see you and learn more about what your publishing program looks like these days – and explore any ways our editorial and production teams could help.  To be clear, many of our staff continue to work from home, and we know meeting up in person isn’t possible for everyone. Let’s meet up soon, however is best for you, whether in a conference room or on a Zoom!

Filed Under: Conferences, Featured Tagged With: ASU/GSV, BETT, conferences, DBW, Digital Book World, FETC, Frankfurt Book Fair, Future of Education Technology Conference, London Book Fair, Society for Scholarly Publishing, SSP, Zoom

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