News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Peer Review Week celebrates technology and innovation, book prize shortlists roll out, and two new reports for Banned Books Week

Posted on September 27, 2024 in News

Commemorating Peer Review Week

Happy Peer Review Week (PRW)! To ring in the festivities, Alice Meadows, Jasmine Wallace, and Karin Wulf outline this year’s theme of innovation and technology for Scholarly Kitchen. Of course the authors discuss AI’s implications on peer review workflows (how could they not), questioning if and how the technology could help with systemic issues in the peer review structure. They also highlight innovative thinking like evaluating peer review platforms and staying informed on the basics of publishing practices. Next, IOP Publishing (IOPP) released a YouTube video calling for more courteous reviews. Released in time for PRW, the video features several researchers displaying rude and unproductive reviews that they have received. IOPP’s reviewer-engagement manager and lead of the video project Laura Feetham-Walker discusses the impact of disparaging or humiliating reviews, underscoring the merits of double-anonymous and transparent review.

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A Look at the Latest Book Challenges

This week also marks Banned Books Week, which kicked off with reports from the American Library Association (ALA) and PEN America on book bans and challenges. ALA’s report revealed a decrease in the number of books objected to so far in 2024, while PEN’s study showed an “explosion” in the removal of books from school shelves in the 2023-24 academic year, “tripling to more than 10,000 over the previous year.” As AP News notes, these two findings aren’t actually at odds due to differences in how the organizations define bans and challenges. Further, AP News shares comments from the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and PEN’s Freedom to Read program, in addition to updates on the fallout from 2023’s Iowa law that prohibits school libraries from carrying books with sex acts.

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Serials Pricing Report, UC and Taylor & Francis’s OA Partnership, and New Director and Publisher at WLU Press

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) released the latest iteration of its Serials Price Projection Report, predicting that “overall effective publisher price increases for libraries are four to five percent for individual e-journal titles, three and a half to four and a half percent for e-journal packages and five to six percent for print titles (before currency impact).” The report also reflects on market trends including open access and AI and derives from an analysis of publisher surveys and pricing data. Next, the University of California (UC) and Taylor & Francis (T&F) are partnering on a four-year read and publish agreement. UC Libraries will fund the cost to publish open access in Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals for UC researchers. T&F shared that researchers who’ve published articles since January 1st of this year will receive funding to flip their work to OA or a refund for articles already made open access. Finally, Wilfrid Laurier University Press revealed that Mat Buntin will become the Press’s Director and Publisher beginning October 15. Currently serving as an Acquisitions Editor at University of Alberta Press, Buntin has 17 years of publishing experience and is a member of the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Association of Canadian University Presses, and the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.

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Shortlists Galore: British Academy Book Prize, Wolfson Prize, and the Financial Times Business Book of the Year

Publishing Perspectives’ Porter Anderson rounded-up several recently announced literary shortlists, starting with the British Academy Book Prize. The six-title list features “ground-breaking works of nonfiction that have made an outstanding contribution to the public understanding of world cultures and their interactions, and are grounded in rigorous and high-quality research.” The winner will be announced on October 22. The Wolfson History Prize also published a six-book shortlist and will name its winner on December 2. Two titles from Yale University Press made the cut: Nicholas Radburn’s Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Andrew Seaton’s Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution. Lastly, Anderson covered the shortlist for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award. Books from Harvard and Yale University Presses grace the list and the winner will be crowned December 9th.

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Clarivate Measures Research’s Social Impact and T&F Launches Notifications for Articles “Under Investigation”

Taylor & Francis has introduced pop-up notifications for articles it deems “currently under investigation.” Retraction Watch explained that the notifications are not visible in databases and are determined by Taylor & Francis’s publishing ethics and integrity team. Sabina Alam, director of Publishing Ethics & Integrity at Taylor & Francis, shared that, “This new ‘under investigation’ notification will keep readers informed earlier in the process and enable us to remove the message once the investigation has been completed, whatever conclusion it comes to.” Retraction Watch covered several responses from scientific sleuths, who suggested including more information about the investigations in the notifications and updating readers about the results. Last, Clarivate announced a new framework for measuring research’s societal impact, published in a report from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The framework “goes beyond traditional scholarly output and includes a wide range of data sources” and will be utilized in Clarivate’s upcoming Web of Science Research Intelligence platform.

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