Lucy Barnes

I'm two weeks late reposting this but it's still quite the landmark for us. The press is old enough to drive now! 🚗 #OAbooks

Aggressive stupidity is their stock-in-trade now. They seem to think doubling down bullishly on all their worst ideas is the way to recover. Maybe it's the standard process political parties go through after an enormous defeat, but for the Conservatives it increasingly sounds like a death rattle.

And it's also available open access, so public spirited enlightenment is free to download: www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781...

According to this author (and another who quotes this post) their open access books acquired as part of the T&F deal with AUP are no longer listed as OA on the publisher's website.

Both books were openly licensed for non-commercial use, so this move breaches that licence, it seems to me.

SALON: At the next ScholarLed Salon we will discuss marketing and outreach. Anyone interested in scholar-led publishing is welcome to join us!

📆 Wednesday 8 October
⏰ 17:00 CEST/16:00 BST/11am EDT/8am PDT

The details will be sent via our mailing list -- sign up here: scholarled.org/salon.html

Excellent (but depressing) analysis by @gsoh31.bsky.social on the fragile state of higher education in the UK. This passage particularly struck me. politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/where-n...

Ephemera and the Construction of First World War Life Writing In the years following the First World War, memoirs of combatants and those who experienced war in other roles proliferated the print market with their autobiographies. People made sense of their war ...

“Ephemera and the Construction of First World War Life Writing” by Ann‑Marie Foster / @amfoster.bsky.social: doi.org/10.16995/olh...

Part of the #OLHJournal special collection Literature as Imaginary Archive: Ephemera and Modern Literary Production

YouTube video by Open Access Books Network Publishing Open Access Books: Insights from ERC-Funded Authors

RECORDING: the recording of our recent webinar, 'Publishing Open Access Books: Insights from ERC-Funded Authors', organised with the kind support of the ERC Executive Agency, is now available to view and share:

📺 youtu.be/vVf9GspOs8g?...

#OAbooks #OpenAccess @operaseu.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu

🤣🤣 The contrast was perfect

Before you wrap up for the week, sign up for this webinar and join us on Tuesday!

#OAbooks #OpenAccess

This event is on TUESDAY! Sign up and learn more about author experiences of publishing #OAbooks and editing #OpenAccess book series 👇

Seriously, how many academic libraries have remodeled themselves to be hostile to print? How many staffing shortages have made print processing slower and more difficult?

I remain unconvinced print is actually in low demand across academic libraries.

What I think is that admin doesn't value it.

Re: print usage - I think it really depends how easy we make getting print. Universities in Ontario created a shared catalogue and a very easy method to request print from anywhere else in the province since then we've seen our print usage go up... and we are not the only ones seeing this trend.

Anne Houston: checking out physical books at Swarthmore College Library has dropped to just a quarter of what it used to be 15 years ago. We’re close to seeing the disappearance of physical print books in academic publishing altogether #OASPA2025

How Librarians are Advancing Open Book Publishing at the Lever Press The Lever Press, an initiative led cooperatively by libraries and librarians, offers a compelling model for the publication of open access books

Resharing as Anne Houston (Swarthmore College Libraries & Lever Press) is speaking on the #OASPA2025 panel

✏️ The library at the heart of the open access transition

🔗 katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

Danny Kingsley @dannykay68.bsky.social telling a room full of publishers that the lack of good faith in R&P agreements has to stop. What planet are commercial publishers living on? Constant grind for library staff to deal with what she describes as this “garbage”. #OASPA2025

Q: let's talk OA monographs. Anne - we are seeing a huge decline in the usage of print books, but OA eBooks are *used*, we know they have impact. OA books are able to be more experimental ie, Fulcrum developed tech for Lever to have French book with English translation & commentary. #OASPA2025

Anne- what we need from publishers is transparency, and evidence of impact. Explain to us why you need the money you do. Seems overly difficult to get/ understand usage - need both data and user stories about impact. Helps make case to administration. #OASPA2025

@dannykay68.bsky.social the "negotiations" with publishers are ridiculous and they are coming to us in bad faith - constant grind of dishonest conversation with increases beyond our budget increases, new terms and restrictions, embargoes with no evidence, etc. #OASPA2025

POSITIVE: from @samuelmoore.org - a resurgence in the UK of universities supported to have presses for OA publishing. Return to the 1960s tradition of the university press where there was no expectation that the books make a commercial return. This is a direct outcome of OA work. #OASPA2025

Thanks @samuelmoore.org for the shoutout for @openlibhums.org as an example of how the humanities / HSS had to solve their own publishing & infrastructure problems and, in so doing, provided examples for subjects in STEM. Fascinating panel at #OASPA2025 chaired by @charleswatkinson.bsky.social

Jessica from Érudit as a comment - addition to knowledges that shouldn't be OA - Indigenous knowledges (ownership, access, some may even add the rest of OCAP ;) - Leslie Chan's work: openscholarshippress.pubpub.org/pub/w1ml61jl...

Excited to present the OPERAS Research Infrastructure Special Interest Group on #OpenAccess Books at #OASPA2025. If you want to join the community then have a look at operas-eu.org/special-inte...

How Should Diamond Open Access Work for Books? As infrastructures, policymaking activities, and funding for open access book publishing evolve, the question of how diamond OA might best be implemented for books becomes more pressing. A review of d...

For example, earlier this year a piece on Diamond #OpenAccess was published in Katina as the result of a collaboration between the Open Access Business Models WG and the OABN WG:

'How Should Diamond Open Access Work for Books?' katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

This poster shows how the OABN Working Group fits into the broader Open Access Books Special Interest Group of @operaseu.bsky.social.

The aim is to foster more effective collaboration on #OAbooks. (1/2)

Image of the OPERAS OA Books SIG poster for the OASPA conference

Coming up now at the #OASPA2025 poster session, @nielsstern.bsky.social will be presenting on behalf of the @operaseu.bsky.social #OABooks SIG.

Preview the poster, 'Building a Stronger OA Book Ecosystem' below!

Conceding the premise is a good tactic though, isn't it? 'Reform are right, but don't vote for them' is a message that seems to be working well for both Labour and the Tories (and the country as a whole). All going very well.

Sounds straightforward.......

Thanks for your posts Danny, really useful!

Yes! We've made three awards so far and will shortly be announcing our next four. Updates/more info here: openbookcollective.pubpub.org/collective-d...

Yup! What do you think is needed to fix this? A stronger steer from the funders?