ALPSP 5th International Conference

It’s finally here! The fifth ALPSP International Conference and we’re off to The Belfry, the “Spiritual Home of the Ryder Cup”, set in 500 acres of stunning countryside.  I’m hoping that delegates won’t be side-tracked by such a spectacular setting as we’ve got an excellent line up of sessions and social events.

2012 is ALPSP’s 40^th year and we look forward to celebrating.  Our opening Keynote on Tuesday afternoon is Mary Waltham, who will take a very honest view of the last 40 years of scholarly and professional publishing and ask ‘how did we do?’  It may not be as good as we might think.  Arend Welmers is our second keynote on Wednesday morning.  If we got a poor grade from Mary, then perhaps Arend may be able to direct us along the right path.

Our plenary sessions start with an entertaining look at the global issues affecting scholarly and professional publishing.  Then we address the thorny issues of just how scholarly communication is going to cope with reducing attentions spans and whether any of us will survive having to give it all away.  Our final plenary on Thursday has a slightly more positive slant: “It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine!”

In amongst all that, there are six parallel sessions to choose from.  Before lunch on Wednesday, we’ll be getting the low-down on proposed changes to copyright legislation and their potential effects, finding out what text mining actually is and how it may impact you, or gaining insights to app development.  After lunch there’s the tricky choice between making content discoverable, dealing with unethical behaviours or finding out about the latest product initiatives. 

Unable to make it?  We have a dedicated band of tweeters to keep you up to date (#alpsp12), and we’re also hoping to have regular blog updates.  In addition, we’re videoing all the sessions, so you can catch up with what you missed after the conference.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all of our sponsors:

Gold             Oxford University Press

Silver              QScience.com

                   SAGE

Copyright Clearance Center

Atypon

Thomson Reuters

Bronze           Publishing Technology

                   SWETS

                   DataSalon

                   Cambridge University Press

Nature Publishing Group

                   Turpin Distribution

                   Wiley-Blackwell

                   RSC Publishing

Reception Sponsors            Publishing Technology (Opening Reception)

                                      Highwire (Dinner Reception)

         

I look forward to seeing those of you making your way to the conference.  I hope you enjoy it and leave feeling reinvigorated and ready to tackle the next 40 years!

Audrey McCulloch

Chief Executive