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/

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!

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.

In Focus: The London Publishing Partnership

The London Publishing Partnership (LPP) is a new publishing services company that has recently joined ALPSP and that specializes in working with learned societies, research institutes and think-tanks. Since getting started in the spring of this year they have signed contracts with the London School of Economics (the Centre for Economic Performance and the Paul Woolley Centre), the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the International Growth Centre. Their first book (published for the LSE) is The Future of Finance: The LSE Report.

The business is focused on books (all disciplines), this being an area that one of the directors, Richard Baggaley, identified as being a problem for many learned societies and research institutes: “Books tend to be occasional publications and, unlike journals, need to be produced and marketed on a one-off basis. They can be expensive to produce and sell, and can therefore lose money for societies. Tie-ups with other publishers, such as university presses, can bring kudos but can also be frustratingly slow, cumbersome and hard to control. Our aim is to solve this problem – starting from the premise that the society has its own kudos, knows its market and with help can reach it as well as anyone.”

The business works by bringing together high-quality production expertise (the London firm T&T Productions) with Richard's long editorial experience and the marketing skills of Oxford Publicity Partnership. They are using both print on demand and traditional printing. For more information see www.londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk

10% discount for ALPSP members from Renew Training

We are pleased to announce that Renew Training - who provide specialist training for journal publishers - are now offering a 10% discount off of their courses for all ALPSP members.

Renew Training is operated by Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner, who between them have over 30 years' experience in scholarly publishing, and was formed to help publishers and intermediaries improve their knowledge and understanding of the behaviour of authors, customers and end users.

They currently offer two courses: Understanding the Journals Industry and Understanding E-Journal Technology.

Research Information in Transition - free RIN seminars in London

Our colleagues at the Research Information Network (www.rin.ac.uk) are organizing three FREE evening seminars on RESEARCH INFORMATION IN TRANSITION which will be held in London. Details are as follows:

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN at http://www.rin.ac.uk/news/events/research-information-transition-series-evening-events-2010

11 October The future of scholarly publishing – where do we go from here?
18 November Research data – policies and behaviours
13 December Quality assurance – responding to a changing information world

The Research Information Network welcomes you to this programme of events over the course of autumn to explore the huge changes that are taking place in the way that research information and data are created, managed, used and disseminated; and to consider the implications for all those, in the academic realm and beyond, with an interest in the good health of the UK research base.

All three events are free and open to all involved and interested in these issues. We are expecting a lively debate led by experts in their field and hope that we can come to some degree of common understanding of how these changes can be marshalled for the benefit of UK research and what this may mean for the different stakeholders in the foreseeable future.

This series of events will take place at the Royal College of Physicians, in London. Each will run from 17:30 - 20:30, and will consist of a series of short presentations, followed by discussions and opportunities for networking over drinks and canapés. Speakers include:

• Robert Kiley, Head of Digital Services, Wellcome Library
• Phil Sykes, Chair of RLUK and University Librarian, Liverpool University
• Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing, Public Library of Science

Information and registration can be found at http://www.rin.ac.uk/

For enquiries contact Kissley Leonor at kissley.leonor@rin.ac.uk

M&A activities brokered by Bertoli Mitchell

We've just been contacted by Bertoli Mitchell drawing our attention to the following transactions that took place in the first half of 2010 (some of which you may have missed):

Willan Publishing sold to Taylor & Francis
Willan Publishing was founded by its Managing Director Brian Willan in 1999 with a clear focus to publish high quality books on Criminology, Criminal Justice, Policing, Forensic Psychology and related disciplines for the whole spectrum of student, academic and practitioner markets. It is now arguably the leading UK publisher in its field.

In addition to successful textbooks such as Professor Tim Newburn’s Criminology and Roger Hopkins Burke’s Introduction to Criminological Theory (3/e, 2009), Willan has developed a group of best-selling multi-author Handbooks in various disciplines, and also a number of respected series, such as the Cambridge Criminal Justice series, published in association with Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology.

Willan Publishing was an Independent Publishing Awards winner in 2008 and 2009. It is the third such IPA winner to have been represented in sale by Bertoli Mitchell in the last three years.

Bertoli Mitchell structured and led the transaction, acting on behalf of the Willan shareholders.

Hodder Education acquire Royal Society of Medicine Press books programme and examdoctor.co.uk website
Hodder Education, part of the Hachette UK group, reached an agreement with the Royal Society of Medicine Press to acquire both their commercial books programme and the medical exam preparation website examdoctor.co.uk. The programme comprises approximately 200 backlist titles and a new publishing programme of 20 titles a year. Hodder Education, through its Health Sciences imprint Hodder Arnold, will continue to publish and develop RSM Books using the RSM logo under licence from The Royal Society of Medicine. Bertoli Mitchell brokered the transaction, acting on behalf of The Royal Society of Medicine.

CIMA merges its Mastercourses Division into BPP Professional Education
The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) outsourced its Mastercourses Division via a merger with BPP Professional Education’s Finance and Tax Courses Division. CIMA Mastercourses is a training business focused on the UK financial professional CPD market. Bertoli Mitchell was retained by CIMA to review the terms of the transaction, both the proposed financial terms and the operating partnership workings.

London School of Economics’ classic social sciences database acquired by ProQuest
ProQuest, an information technology firm supporting global research, acquired the London School of Economics’ classic International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS). Established in 1951, IBSS is the foremost Abstracting and Indexing database for social science and interdisciplinary research, currently holding more than 2.5 million bibliographic references. IBSS also expands by more than 120,000 new additions each year. Bertoli Mitchell, acting as exclusive strategic and financial adviser to the London School of Economics, led the negotiations and managed the transaction process to completion.

Premier History journal acquired by Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis acquired The International History Review, the only English-language quarterly devoted entirely to the history of international relations and the history of international thought. Since 1979 the Review has established itself as one of the premier History journals in the world, read and regularly cited by both political scientists and historians. Bertoli Mitchell, acting as exclusive financial adviser to the founding owners, led the negotiations and managed the transaction process to completion.