Isn’t that because one emerged from a meeting of journal subscription agents, primarily servicing STEM, and the other is increasingly a branch of the critical humanities, with some of the strengths but also the institutional marginalisation that implies?
Well, yes and no. It also plays to that agenda of self-marginalisation that some critics don’t think of as particularly positive...And it reinforces still further the institutional sense of Big STEM ’centrality’ which isn’t ultimately helpful. Othering AHSS isn’t something we always want to do.
Pearson full year results released this morning show turnover rose 4% to £3,577m but profits fell to £507m, from £541m in 2024. Share price has fallen by 30% over past year, driven by perceived 'AI impacts'. We shall see...
As it always has been. Almost every single digital schol comm development within HEIs over past 25 years has been to the relative disadvantage of smaller imprints, invariably focussed on AHSS. But I have never thought that funders (or indeed HEIs) cared that much about this. Not their problem…
What have I been saying for the past twenty years? ‘Never, ever, underestimate what people don’t know, or indeed care about, when working in schol comm’. Still a general truth and social media remains vv unrepresentative….
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/18/g...
'the question is whether institutions are willing to take ownership' is a core challenge for our time. Unfortunately, the answer from c95% of resource-strapped transatlantic institutions hitherto has been a resolute 'no'...
www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...
Great chance to run one of the very few Soc Sci- driven University Presses in captivity, which under Alison Shaw's transformative leadership has reached new levels of international reach and operational capacity
Understood, but that wasn't the perception when debates about 'the Open' got going on two decades or so. 'Open research cultures' is a relatively recent thing to think about...
Complete agreement, but a salutary reminder that for 95% of funders and policy agents and indeed institutions 'research = STEM', as was obvious in most early statements about OA. AHSS and long-form has always been an afterthought in this context...
The Brief notes that publicly traded prof publishers have lost > $50 billion in equity value over past year. Wiley stock is down nearly 30%. Springer Nature stock is down 35%. RELX (parent company of Elsevier) stock is down 39% and Wolters Kluwer stock has declined by 54%. 'AI risk exposure'...
Thames and Hudson has sold its college list to the mighty WW Norton and will focus only on trade sales into N America. Logical for both parties, I think...
You may jest but I did once have a (very entitled) author who when I suggested that s/he cut their book from its submitted 180K word extent to something closer to the contracted 100K claimed that my request was ‘an infringement of academic freedom’….
wonkhe.com/blogs/what-i...
A rather more measured assessment from Wonkhe of the Trinity Hall admissions row...and some fairly bonkers comments (on all sides) below the line.
Looking for an intellectual treat? @petermandler.bsky.social 's Ford Lectures on 'The Language of Social Science in Everyday Life' begin Thursday 22 January and continue weekly through 26 February in Oxford. #Skystorians
But the problem with that is any kind of institutional coordination let alone international and/or transatlantic agreement. Can’t see India or China or the USA signing up for this somehow?
AHA was too and back in the 1980s my Mum would get very fed up when I deserted the family Xmas at about 8am on Boxing Day for a flight to the USA and 6000 historians…
Really enjoyed this Martin - many thanks indeed. And your point about ‘society governance’ is a very important one. Same with University Presses, all of which (including OUP and CUP) are ultimately governed by academic bodies of one sort or another. Doesn’t mean they all have the same imperatives…
My nostalgic Xmas reading, as for most of the past 40 Xmases, has been a combo of Red For Danger by Tom Rolt, The Trains we Loved by C Hamilton Ellis and The Lanchester Tradition by GF Bradby. All deeply satisfying, in different ways…
Bookbrunch reporting that final stage of the EU Deforestation Regulation was reached as Euro Parliament voted in favour of the provisional agreement reached excluding 'printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry, manuscripts, typescripts and plans, of paper.'
Faber turnover 2024-25 of £29.5m was best on record (up from £27.1m last year), with operating profit of £2.2m (2024: £1.3m), and a margin of 7% (2024: 5%). In 2022-23, Faber turnover was £25.4m with profits of £1.4m; previous record year was 2021-22, when turnover was £27.89m and profit was £3.10m.
None at all, obvs…Kortext hardly a disinterested party either. But also reveals the sheer multiplicity of different learning environments at institutions like OxU, where the Said proposition and a tute in (say) the mid-Tudor special subject are doing rather different things. Bonkers to generalise…
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/12/08/g...
Purely American examples, but vvv well worth reading nonetheless...
wonkhe.com/blogs/whatev...
This is a long but vv worthwhile read. Very significant local politico-economic implications at Southend (and elsewhere)
www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/article...
'Bloomsbury has this morning, in an official Stock Exchange notification, announced 'a new strategic collaboration with Google Cloud focused on technology innovation, AI-powered learning and core publishing infrastructure.' One of the big five monograph imprints.
Yes, subject to confirmation next month. 'The European Commission has voted to remove all printed products, including books, journals, newspapers and magazines – from the scope of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The amendment passed with 449 votes in favour, 202 against. '
www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/article...
Slightly arcane but rather important publishing news...
Many Happy Returns to Quentin Skinner, 85 today (and still seminar-ing this evening!)
Absolutely. The fact that this is in any sense ‘news’ in 2025 is I guess a healthy reminder of how little most researchers actually engage with the structures and processes of schol comm. Or ever have done. Ours is a minority obsession, always.
Mind you, that’s a variant of what David Sweeney used to imply. Less research, but all of it open…which around the time of Finch etc was quite a common funder view.
