An Update from ALPSP Chief Executive: March 2021

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement, we are hopefully seeing a way out of lockdown in England. We have made a few changes to the way in which ALPSP conducts its business after successfully launching our new events management system. I hope you will like the way in which we are now able to engage with our members.

Our recent webinar/workshop on Progress on OA agreements with libraries and consortia lead by Alicia Wise from Information Power went well. We broke into working groups which stimulated a good discussion that Alicia will be feeding back in her report. Information Power would like to learn about publisher experiences of seeking or entering into transformative OA agreements with libraries and library consortia. This is for a project being undertaken on behalf of cOAlition S & ALPSP to measure progress on these agreements during 2020, to understand the factors which lead to success, and to develop a set of recommendations for funders, libraries, library consortia and publishers that could lead to more agreements. We would ask that each publishing member organization nominate someone to complete this short online survey.

At the Publishers’ Content Forum in February a wide range of topics were covered. There was an interesting discussion around the desire of the EU to create a digital bridge between Europe and the US. Whether this comes about will be down to the Biden administration, and there would need to be substantial change if this bridge were to be constructed.

 

We have now launched our new Mentorship scheme. There was a lot of positive energy when I met with both mentors and mentees and I believe that we are off to a great start. The current scheme will finish at the end of July, and we envisage this being a rolling activity. Please email Amanda Whiting for further details.

 

We are looking for a member to represent ALPSP on the Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS) Board. Ideally, this would be someone from a society publisher who has an interest in licensing. The post would involve a time commitment of between 15-20 days per annum. This would be a great opportunity to acquire board experience. If you would like further details, please email me.   

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Wayne Sime

Chief Executive, ALPSP