About forty years ago I saw Kenny Burrell live at Fat Tuesday’s in NYC. A memorable night of unfashionable jazz guitar.

Hasn't stopped him making gazillions though, has it?

Akin to when the London Book Fair and the National Salon Convention (or something like that) both happened at Excel at the same time, and the interaction of cosmopolitan European literary agents and Essex beauticians was something to behold…

Glorious marketing confusion at the Excel today, which is simultaneously hosting the National Wedding Show and Salute!, Europe’s largest wargames convention. Some very eager leafleters giving “wedding insurance, but cute!” fliers to somewhat baffled wargames enthusiasts…

Guest Post — Diamond Open Access: A Lifeline for the Monograph? - The Scholarly Kitchen Today's guest bloggers ask: Can Diamond OA serve as a genuine lifeline for the scholarly monograph?

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/04/02/g...
Interesting Dutch findings, even though the Netherlands has always been in lots of ways a (positive) OA outlier...the transatlantic world remains a (much) tougher nut to crack

But that is, whether we like it or not, to ignore almost all of STEM. Which in the end has the whip-hand in almost all research institutions...I do think that AHSS and STEM are now following very different OA trajectories.

The longform gridlock goes back (at least) two decades, and the (far) greater fragmentation of AHSS cf. STEM has proved a real challenge. As has the historic massive dependence on exports of the UK monographic economy, not self-sustaining for at least thirty years now…

#UKSG2026 and these tensions long pre-date Finch. NB back in the 2000s when academic publishing was discussed in the Lords and the then DTI basically told HE etc to like it or lump it, as the sector was such an important net financial contributor to UK PLC with a massive export base...

and rightly or wrongly you cannot ignore the 'big international STEM' agendas that are central to plenty of research-intensive HEIs (and the UK government). Wherein lies a real challenge. OA increasingly pursuing two (very) divergent paths as between parts of AHSS and STEM...

Although there is one massively important difference, in that the large majority of the academic revenues are from exports, unlike consumer publishing which is much more UK focussed. UK only about 10% of revenues for many of the big UK-based academic publishers…

All true, but what can be missed here is that the vast majority of the academic publishing revenues declared herewith are 'exports' - unlike consumer imprints, far more UK-centric. A massive structural difference: 'UK academic revenues' no more than 10% of the whole for most of the larger players...

Good question. And I‘d like to know how much has now been published? Not a question people always like, but a key one nonetheless. And what disciplinary emphases (if any) have emerged? And how international is the author base? Is the dial really moving, or is this existing alongside the status quo?

Complete 100% agreement!

Is this making a distinction between university presses which are ultimately driven by the central university (and its various, complex motivations) and more devolved, generally smaller entities? Both are 'scholar-led', but the scholars themselves and their priorities may differ?

Something fierce. What Essex tells us about the fate of the plate glass universities The plate glass universities were founded on intimacy, radicalism and community. Adam Wright asks whether an obsession with growth has made those promises impossible to keep

wonkhe.com/blogs/someth...
Very interesting analysis of governance challenges in a plate glass HEI context. An often forgotten narrative, and agenda, that deserves to be retold and restated...

Just a shame it’s anonymous, which in the ‘open’ context doesn’t sit that happily…

Thanks for all of this Joe. I am always sceptical that any UK-specific agenda can ever be truly a ‘watershed moment’ in the OA monographic domain but this is an interesting set of interventions. What may matter most is how much individual faculty notice, when making their own publishing decisions...

So sorry to hear all of this Martin. VV best wishes for what comes next Richard

“Reputation, trust, and community” - Research Information Mark Carden reflects on his 11 years as director of the Researcher to Reader meeting and the importance of conversation

www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opi...
Very interesting Q and A with the estimable Mark Carden, founder of the R2R (Researcher to Reader) conference, not least on the (huge) expense of doing hybrid properly...

Springer results via Bookbrunch full year of 2025: revenue rose to €1,926.4m, up from €1,847.1m in 2024, with 6.2% underlying growth. Adjusted operating profit rose to €543.6m, up from €512.4m in 2024, representing underlying growth of 9.2%, 'reflecting improved product mix and operating leverage.'

Always funny when tech types talk about humanities culture. In Patricia Clarke’s piece on AI and publishing in the Observer today the great Tony Grafton is cited simply as ‘a history professor’, which is not far from citing Elon Musk as an ‘influencer’…

Cambridge restaurant to be demolished for new student accommodation The building is being redeveloped to include student accommodation and restaurant space

www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambrid...
Is nothing sacred? Am pretty sure this was once Leavis's Piano Shop, as in FRL (of Downing College, ironically). In reverse, Wittgenstein's former digs on the East Road are now a KFC...

Isn’t that because one emerged from a meeting of journal subscription agents, primarily servicing STEM, and the other is increasingly a branch of the critical humanities, with some of the strengths but also the institutional marginalisation that implies?

Well, yes and no. It also plays to that agenda of self-marginalisation that some critics don’t think of as particularly positive...And it reinforces still further the institutional sense of Big STEM ’centrality’ which isn’t ultimately helpful. Othering AHSS isn’t something we always want to do.

Chief Executive Officer, Bristol University Press - Bristol University Press/Policy Press - Bristol Chief Executive Officer, Bristol University Press - Bristol University Press/Policy Press - Academic, Educational, Publisher - Business Development, Management, Operations -

jobs.thebookseller.com/career/28701...

Pearson full year results released this morning show turnover rose 4% to £3,577m but profits fell to £507m, from £541m in 2024. Share price has fallen by 30% over past year, driven by perceived 'AI impacts'. We shall see...

As it always has been. Almost every single digital schol comm development within HEIs over past 25 years has been to the relative disadvantage of smaller imprints, invariably focussed on AHSS. But I have never thought that funders (or indeed HEIs) cared that much about this. Not their problem…

What have I been saying for the past twenty years? ‘Never, ever, underestimate what people don’t know, or indeed care about, when working in schol comm’. Still a general truth and social media remains vv unrepresentative….

Guest Post — Diamond Open Access Needs Institutions, Not Heroes - The Scholarly Kitchen Today's guest blogger asks: What would it mean to support community-led publishing as infrastructure, rather than as a collection of heroic individual efforts?

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/18/g...
'the question is whether institutions are willing to take ownership' is a core challenge for our time. Unfortunately, the answer from c95% of resource-strapped transatlantic institutions hitherto has been a resolute 'no'...

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Great chance to run one of the very few Soc Sci- driven University Presses in captivity, which under Alison Shaw's transformative leadership has reached new levels of international reach and operational capacity