Friday 24 September 2010

CCC presentations at Frankfurt Book Fair

ALPSP members attending Frankfurt may like to note that The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) is presenting on two interesting subjects in the Forum Innovation. Topic 1: Leveraging Technology to Automate Online Licensing.
Topic 2: Monetizing Content in a Sophisticated Digital World.
For times and session details, visit www.copyright.com/frankfurt.
To RSVP, email events@copyright.com.

Thursday 23 September 2010

Books International (US) and Turpin Distribution (UK) announce strategic alliance

Press Release 17 Sept
International now offers global fulfilment and distribution to their American client publishers through their new alliance with Turpin Distribution. US publishers can now contract with Books International for global fulfilment using the services of Turpin for order processing, customer service, cash collection outside the North American market.

Turpin Distribution can now offer its book clients enhanced services and faster delivery times within North America. Turpin is now using the fulfilment services of Books International for warehousing, picking, packing and distributing product to the North American market.

The Turpin US customer service operation will continue to support its book and journal clients from their facility within New Milford, Connecticut.

Contacts:
Books International
Ellen Loerke
ellen.loerke@booksintl.com

Turpin Distribution
Elizabeth Just (North America)
Elizabeth.Just@turpin-distribution.com
Neil Castle (Rest of the World)
Neil.Castle@turpin-distribution.com

Monday 20 September 2010

Launch of the OAPEN Library at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Posted on behalf of OAPEN

We are pleased to announce that OAPEN, the European project dedicated to Open Access publishing of academic books, will officially launch the OAPEN Library at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The ceremony will take place on Wednesday, October 6, 12 PM in Hall 4.2 - C 1433 (Education Hot Spot stage) of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The launching ceremony of the OAPEN Library will mark the start of the first dedicated collection of freely available academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences from across Europe. Through the OAPEN Library we aim to build a branded collection of Open Access peer-reviewed books and to increase the visibility and retrievability of high-quality European research. We also aim to promote Open Access book publishing by developing common standards, based on transparent procedures for peer review and recommendations for OA licences.
It is of course no coincidence that we have chosen the Frankfurt Book Fair, the oldest and largest book fair in the world and vitally important to the international book trade, to launch the OAPEN Library and introduce a new business model for academic books, based on Open Access to academic information. We believe the OAPEN Library will contribute to a new and vibrant future of the academic monograph in the digital age.
We hope to welcome you at the ceremony. If you wish to attend, please let us know through oapen@aup.nl

OAPEN will have its own stand at the Fair, in order to talk to interested publishers. In the coming months, we will approach academic publishers from across Europe to take part in the OAPEN Library. If you wish to learn more about OAPEN at the fair, please make an appointment with project coordinator Eelco Ferwerda, info@aup.nl. Our stand is in Hall 4.2, C412.
For more information please contact Eelco Ferwerda (Amsterdam University Press) e.ferwerda@aup.nl or learn more about OAPEN by visiting the website: www.oapen.org

Friday 17 September 2010

CLOCKSS Executive Director Position Opening

The CLOCKSS archive [www.clockss.org] is searching for an Executive Director. CLOCKSS is a global nonprofit, community-governed archive that preserves digital scholarly materials for the very long term through a geo-physical and geo-political distributed network of archive nodes. The Executive Director runs the organization and reports to a Board made up of major scholarly publishers and university libraries from around the world. The Executive Director will grow the organization as a major global scholarly archive and a valuable collaborative community of scholarly publishers and academic libraries.

This is a wonderful opportunity for an energetic leader who wants to make a visible impact in the scholarly community. See http://www.clockss.org/

Friday 10 September 2010

The Tragic Tale of Toby Green (chapter 2)

Chair of ALPSP Council, Toby Green (OECD) couldn't make it to the 2010 ALPSP International Conference this week.  Unfortunately Toby was laid up in hospital in France with a fractured pelvis following an accident.

Toby broke a leg right before the Frankfurt Book Fair last year and used his misfortune to raise money for Della Sar's terrific charity Friends of Della and Don and is doing the same this time around.  Delegates at the Conference raised a stunning £520 for the charity to hear the story of how the latest accident unfolded so here is the story right from the horses mouth:

"I was out riding with my children and a couple of gauchos on a estancia (ranch) a couple of hours outside Buenos Aires. As we turned to head back, my horse started skittering and rearing for no apparent reason – there are various theories, it saw a snake, was bitten by an insect, smelt an armadillo (seriously!) – but whatever it was, I lost my balance and fell off. So far, so good; nothing hurt except my pride. But as I lay on the ground, to my surprise the bloody animal fell onto me. I rolled onto my side but not fast enough and the horse landed on my hip, compressing the pelvis (and everything inside!). They’re heavy, are horses. Anyway, it bloody hurt and I figured something wasn’t right so I stayed still, pleased that my toes and feet could move, reassuring the children I wasn’t about to die (that was their first question!) and that all would be well. Thankfully one of the gauchos had his mobile and he called for help. 45 minutes later an ambulance bounced across the field to pick me up and then bounced back across the field and then 20 minutes down the unmade road to the nearest town and the Argentinean equivalent of a cottage hospital. An antique X-ray machine confirmed an indeterminate number of fractures (evidently the pelvis is a bugger to X-ray because X-rays are not in 3D – where’s that man James Cameron when you need him [Ed: I wonder if we could sell the film rights: Broke Butt Mountain 3D!]). So, next day, I was transferred to a very posh clinic (thank you medical insurance) in Buenos Aires, complete with nuns, where they could do a CAT scan. Argentinean diagnosis: 3 fractures (both sides of the pubis and left sacrum – the bit where the pelvis joins the spine) but despite all the bumping about, everything was still in the correct position so no need for the knife or even a sticking plaster – just endless bed rest flat on my back. I then spent two weeks listening to nuns singing in the morning and then was flat-packed courtesy of Air France back to Paris. French diagnosis from the same scan, 4 fractures – but then the French are all hypochondriacs and have a tendency to exaggerate. Sadly the French clinic has no nuns (singing or otherwise) but is giving me a taste of what living in an OAP home might be like, I reckon I’m the youngest inmate by around 20 years. I've started re-hab in the clinic’s pool – walking about on crutches waist deep in water, very strange. Nearly fell over backwards. Muscles have forgotten how to walk!"
Toby hopes to raise enough to support four orphans (one for each fracture) for a year and he's already half way there thanks to the generosity of attendees at the ALPSP Conference and it's not too late to give an online donation of any size to help support Della's charity!

Friday 3 September 2010

Library Choice - supporting customer choice

Have you heard of the Library Choice initiative from the ASA?
The ASA and its members believe that libraries and consortia should be free to order via preferred methods and not be obliged to order through any particular channel. Library Choice enables the agent to support any deal which has been negotiated with a publisher, by an individual library or a consortium. In this way, the customer will get the assistance they need with the extra work associated with the access and management of e-journal collections, whilst being able to take advantage of the pricing and terms negotiated by a buying group or consortium.

More information can be found on the ASA website.

Endorsement from Publishers
By signing a Library Choice letter, publishers pledge their support for libraries and consortia to have a choice, for example to place their orders directly with the publisher or, if they prefer, through an agent. Where an agent is preferred, the agent becomes the billing and payment partner, and provides both library and publisher with management data: a win-win for everyone.
 
The ASA website explains how publishers can participate and also hosts the growing list of publishers who have endorsed Library Choice to date.