Publishers Keep Calm and Carry On
/It was another busy year at London Book Fair last week with reports of increased registration numbers up by a double-digit percentage.
The following captured a brief quiet moment at the Cenveo Publisher Services Stand. The global team met with publishers, production managers, archivists, technology executives, and many others to discuss all things related to the creation and management of content.
Accessibility
Indeed, the hot topic for LBF17 at the Cenveo Stand was content accessibility. Long a champion of digital equality, we're helping publishers create and architect content that is "born accessible." The same technologies and guidelines that improve access to materials for people with visual or hearing impairments, limited mobility, perceptual and cognitive differences, are also tremendously useful for all publishers' customers.
No longer limited to education publishers, we see that journal publishers and others have a driving need to do more with content accessibility.
Google Books Decision
In an extremely packed room, America’s foremost copyright jurist and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit, told attendees that Google’s program to scan tens of millions of library books to create an online index “conferred gigantic benefits to authors and the public equally,” and did not “offer a substitute or interfere with authors’ exclusive rights” to control distribution. READ MORE: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Market
The Research and Scholarly Publishing Forum offered academic publishers and service providers a half-day program with lively debates from Elsevier, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis. Some of the highlights included
A discussion about the future of Open Access in the UK between Alicia Wise, Elsevier’s Director of Policy and Access, Liam Earney, Jisc Collections’ Head of Library Support Services, and Chris Banks, Assistant Provost (Space) & Director of Library Services, Central Library, Imperial College London
A panel presenting global research policy developments chaired by Wiley’s James Perham-Marchant, featuring speakers from Taylor & Francis, Berghahn Books and Research Consulting
A panel session on new innovations to watch, chaired by Tracey Armstrong, President and CEO of the Copyright Clearance Center, including speakers from Sparrho, Frontiers and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Full Coverage via Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly covered a range of topics across the many markets represented at the Fair.