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…

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

#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...

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...

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?

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...

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’…

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...

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...

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

Complete agreement, but a salutary reminder that for 95% of funders and policy agents and indeed institutions 'research = STEM', as was obvious in most early statements about OA. AHSS and long-form has always been an afterthought in this context...

The Brief notes that publicly traded prof publishers have lost > $50 billion in equity value over past year. Wiley stock is down nearly 30%. Springer Nature stock is down 35%. RELX (parent company of Elsevier) stock is down 39% and Wolters Kluwer stock has declined by 54%. 'AI risk exposure'...

Thames and Hudson has sold its college list to the mighty WW Norton and will focus only on trade sales into N America. Logical for both parties, I think...

You may jest but I did once have a (very entitled) author who when I suggested that s/he cut their book from its submitted 180K word extent to something closer to the contracted 100K claimed that my request was ‘an infringement of academic freedom’….

wonkhe.com/blogs/what-i... A rather more measured assessment from Wonkhe of the Trinity Hall admissions row...and some fairly bonkers comments (on all sides) below the line.

Looking for an intellectual treat? @petermandler.bsky.social 's Ford Lectures on 'The Language of Social Science in Everyday Life' begin Thursday 22 January and continue weekly through 26 February in Oxford. #Skystorians

AHA was too and back in the 1980s my Mum would get very fed up when I deserted the family Xmas at about 8am on Boxing Day for a flight to the USA and 6000 historians…

My nostalgic Xmas reading, as for most of the past 40 Xmases, has been a combo of Red For Danger by Tom Rolt, The Trains we Loved by C Hamilton Ellis and The Lanchester Tradition by GF Bradby. All deeply satisfying, in different ways…

Bookbrunch reporting that final stage of the EU Deforestation Regulation was reached as Euro Parliament voted in favour of the provisional agreement reached excluding 'printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry, manuscripts, typescripts and plans, of paper.'

Faber turnover 2024-25 of £29.5m was best on record (up from £27.1m last year), with operating profit of £2.2m (2024: £1.3m), and a margin of 7% (2024: 5%). In 2022-23, Faber turnover was £25.4m with profits of £1.4m; previous record year was 2021-22, when turnover was £27.89m and profit was £3.10m.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/12/08/g... Purely American examples, but vvv well worth reading nonetheless...

wonkhe.com/blogs/whatev... This is a long but vv worthwhile read. Very significant local politico-economic implications at Southend (and elsewhere)

www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/article... 'Bloomsbury has this morning, in an official Stock Exchange notification, announced 'a new strategic collaboration with Google Cloud focused on technology innovation, AI-powered learning and core publishing infrastructure.' One of the big five monograph imprints.

www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/article... Slightly arcane but rather important publishing news...

Many Happy Returns to Quentin Skinner, 85 today (and still seminar-ing this evening!)

Bought John Watt’s new book on The Wars of the Roses last week and it is without doubt one of the single most thoughtful, most interesting and best-expressed works of serious history I have read in a very long time. Seriously recommended, and not just if you spend time 400 yards from Harlech Castle.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/11/18/a... This, and the comment thread below, is well worth reading. The author is a senior US university librarian.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/11/12/t... This is a very good read, albeit inevitably North American scientistic in some of its driving presumptions...

Springer Research reported revenue of €1,112.6 million (9M 2024: €1,044.4 million) with underlying growth 7.0% driven by the Journals portfolio, with particular strength in Full Open Access (FOA). The number of published articles rose by more than 10% and over 25% in FOA journals. Bookbrunch today

Am increasingly worried by some of the very simplistic statements about ‘language’ being made in schol comm and OA contexts, and the notion that research content and the language in which it is expressed can be easily separated. Scientific Esperanto may be last ambition of the enlightenment project…

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/11/03/c... Very helpful post from Lisa H, although as always massive NB for scholars outside the US that 'Fair Use' is not a global copyright concept

And, lest we forget, it was this book which inspired the Coalition Government in its pursuit of Open Access and everything that led to the Finch Report. OA was going to be 'the steam' for a 2nd British Industrial Revolution, howsoever defined...

If the below turns out to be well-founded, then this is a pretty significant moment in the tangled history of North American schol comm and library infrastructure…

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/08/18/s... Rick Anderson on some of the stark fiscal realities, and misunderstandings thereof, in schol comm in 2025...

'Springer Nature revenue group rose by 6%, and adjusted operating profit by 10%. First half revenue increased to €926 million and AOP to €241 million, supported by a favourable revenue mix. Growth was driven by the Research segment.' From Bookbrunch this morning.

Probably the wisest thing said on social media about academic publishing this year. Up there with the other abiding, and related mantra: never, ever, underestimate in the worlds of schol comm what otherwise intelligent people don’t know…

Redcliffe Salaman's History and Social Influence of the Potato from the 1940s was famously described by Eric Hobsbawm as a 'magnificent monument of scholarship and humanity'. Salaman did many things including being Master of Fox Hounds...

Interesting that overall OUP numbers have now been pretty static for three years. Profitability of about 9% on £795m turnover seems about right for a UP which funds its parent university (very) significantly. Surplus of between 5 and 10% I always thought the UP sweetspot...

After T&F yesterday, RELX incl Elsevier posted FY25 results showing underlying growth of 7% and profit growth of 9% to 35% for the whole group (which includes exhibitions like London Book Fair and many non-publishing things). But Elsevier STEM shows ‘good growth and developing momentum’…

T and F (including Routledge) showing first-half global revenue growth of 12% in FY2025. Underlying growth of 4% when you strip out one-off data licensing agreements. Subscription income still doing just fine, in the main…

I would argue that this is a 'science' problem as much as a 'publishing' problem per se. Scale will be central to any enterprise in which e.g. American, Indian, Chinese scientific researchers see themselves as working on common problems, and this is bit different from more fragmented worlds of AHSS

Really strong and important piece from Karin Wolf on the SK. UK experience has obvious similarities, but also some important divergences. Ultimately every single thing that has happened in my time in the sector has accelerated the relative flow of research resource away from AHSS towards STEM.

thebookseller.com/comment/facing-north Interesting but what I always demur at in pieces of this kind are the implied assumptions about 'the South' which invariably mean simply 'London'. Cities like Plymouth are far more marginalised in cultural terms than e.g. Manchester or Leeds or Newcastle....

The demographic trends impacting BBC TV news audiences really show up in its current treatment of universities, and problems thereof, and contrast sharply with its treatment of e.g. NHS challenges. There is an inherent (and justified) assumption that those most impacted won’t be watching…

In Academic Markets Informa (owners of T&F/Routledge) report 'Underlying revenue growth of 13.7%, reflecting core like-for-like growth of 3-4%; Business is performing to plan and we continue to sign non-recurring licensing agreements with AI companies.' Still the most used book imprint for the REF.