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“Right now we do seem to be in a transforming moment”


g ‘I have also had librarians ask is this is


going to be the next, new big deal,’ he adds. ‘But if you are buying a huge Springer collection, why wouldn’t you buy a non- profit publisher’s collection the same way?’ For Hill, the answer lies in choice. ‘It is about providing customer choice. By working with aggregators and providing our own platform, we are enabling users to choose which experience they want.’


Smaller scale Andrew Lockett, press manager of the digital-first, open access University of Westminster Press, is following developments at MIT Press and UMP. As he puts it: ‘I will be very interested to


see how these platforms perform in the long run. A problem with the monograph system, bearing in mind that the majority of revenue is still with print, is that from the sale of a monograph some 35 per cent of that is directed into distribution. If you think about supplying an open access title direct, there is potentially this percentage of the cover price of the monograph to be saved.’ Lockett has been at the University


of Westminster Press (UWP) from the beginning. Launched in 2015, the organisation publishes peer-reviewed academic books, policy briefs and journals


that focus on social policy, as well as social sciences and humanities, science and technology, media, arts and design. Its collection currently comprises some 19 books, 11 journal issues and more than 350,000 views and downloads. Akin to the recent aggregator- independent e-book platforms, clear motivations for establishing the University of Westminster Press were the rise of OA, as well as a desire to publish less traditional formats. For example, the Press has published an audio version of its Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, which, in Locketts’ words was ‘a relatively straightforward exercise’. ‘It would have been very difficult to do this with some players in mainstream publishing, as procedure and protocols are so nailed down,’ he said. ‘The potential here [for our Press] is really strong.’ Indeed, UWP is hardly the only up-


and-coming new press to spot potential opportunities in the changing scholarly publishing landscape. Its opening coincided with the launch of other UK- based OA presses, including University College London, Goldsmiths and Cardiff. Lockett reckons that the impetus for


these developments stems from the Research Excellence Framework, as well as universities wishing to increase OA publishing. ‘There was also the frustration in the library sector that wanted more opportunities to publish on behalf of academics, and a growing confidence from senior librarians that they could have a role in these activities,’ he says. Alison Shaw, chief executive of Bristol


University Press, echoes Lockett’s comments. ‘We have a distrust of the large commercial players that seem to be doing


Alison Shaw, Bristol University Press


this for profit... and this is not me attacking the commercial players, this is from the perspective of the academic,’ she said. Bristol University Press was spun out


of Policy Press, established by Shaw in 1996. Since its inception in 2016, it has focused on global social challenges, with a continuation of Policy Press’s aim to inspire social change. Right now, five per cent of its journals’ admissions are OA, and it is currently developing two OA journals. But Shaw’s current observations suggest the academics writing for her press, are ‘remarkably traditional’. ‘We’ve always got to ask, “what do people want?” Right now, print books are here to stay.’ Clearly the latest developments in


scholarly publishing are bringing as much variety as they are change in the world of the university press. As UWP’s Lockett puts it: ‘During the late 1980s and 1990s, everything seemed as if was going to stay the same... but now we do seem to be in a transforming moment.’ Still, some in the university press


community believe more collaboration would help. UMP’s Watkinson notes that financial pressures are forcing all university presses to think very broadly about their futures.


And amid such a backdrop, Shaw would


like to see more communication between the large commercial presses, mid-sized and smaller OA presses. ‘As university presses, we’re in this together – we all have the same drivers and want to get scholarly content out into the world so it has impact,’ she said.


CUP’s Hill agrees. ‘I really don’t see these Detail from Michigan’s A Mid-Republican House in Gabii 8 Research Information August/September 2019


developments as unwelcome competition,’ she said. ‘I would now like to work with the newer presses, to see how collaboratively we can support the needs of our parent universities.’


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