"Black Wednesday" for Publishers; Oxford Journals Inks China Deal; Highwire hits Five Million Mark
-- Library Journal, 12/4/2008 1:12:00 PM
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Despite positive attention for the Google Book Search settlement, 2008 is closing on a decidedly down note for the nation’s major book publishers. In what LJ sister publication Publishers Weekly dubbed “one of the grimmest days” in recent publishing history and Media Bistro called “Black Wednesday,” both Random House and Simon & Schuster announced reorganizations yesterday. At Random House, the announcement claimed the jobs of two long-serving, high-profile editors: Bantam Dell’s Irwyn Applebaum and Doubleday’s Steve Rubin—and more layoffs at Random are said to be in the offing, just months after new CEO Markus Dohle took the helm from Peter Olson.
“After looking closely and extensively at our organization and its rich diversity of authors and resources,” read a staff memo from CEO Dohle, “we have created a plan for our future that aligns existing strengths and publishing affinities and fosters teamwork throughout the company.” Really, could there be more chilling words for jittery employees?
Simon & Schuster said it was eliminating 35 positions. According to a memo from CEO Carolyn Reidy, the cuts came across the board, including S. & S.’s publishing divisions, operations and sales departments, and international division. Reidy said the job eliminations were “an unavoidable acknowledgment of the current bookselling marketplace and what may very well be a prolonged period of economic instability.”
The Random House and S. & S. news comes just weeks after Houghton Mifflin Harcourt acknowledged that the publisher has put a moratorium on purchasing new books until the end of the year. That policy seems to have forced the hand of Harcourt’s highly respected editor-in-chief Becky Saletan, who resigned this week, despite having just taken the top post at Harcourt in January 2008…
In the academic journals world, Oxford Journals announced that is has signed a nationwide archive deal in China with the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC). The agreement will give Chinese researchers access to archival content dating back to 1849 for over 150 journals. ISTIC is part of the Ministry of Science & Technology of China and represents the National Science and Technology Library (NSTL), including major national-level libraries and information research institutions. The agreement with Oxford Journals entitles all NSTL’s noncommercial users to access the 2008 version of the Oxford Journals Archive…
HighWire Press said it has reached a significant milestone this week with the posting of the five millionth article on its e-Publishing platform. HighWire, a division of Stanford University Libraries, offers technology and customized online services to 140 publishing partners ranging from independent nonprofit societies and associations to university presses and large commercial publishers. “What started as a safe haven for pioneering scholarly societies going online in the mid-1990s has become an evolution in scholarly publishing,” noted HighWire director John Sack. The milestone occurred while loading journal back files of the American Medical Association. So what is the five millionth article? Dating from 1884, “Dermatitis Herpetiformis,” by Louis A. Duhring…
And speaking of milestones, commercial open access (OA) publisher Hindawi announced that it has signed its first five institutional members: General Technologies, Vseobecne Technologie (GTVT), Lund University; University of Calgary; University of Malaysia, Perlis (UniMAP); and Utrecht University.
Under the deal, authors from these institutes are now able to submit their work to any of Hindawi’s 150-plus open access journals without being “directly subject” to open access publication charges. Hindawi’s membership program is based on a flat-rate payment that covers all accepted articles submitted by an author from a member institute during the period of the membership. The cost of the membership is tied to the level of research output. Institutional models have been a rather tenuous aspect of OA publishing so far, so how these deals work for Hindawi will be worth watching.
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Part II: The LJ Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview with Tasini Objector Irv Muchnick
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