Academic Markets saw 'Underlying revenue growth of 5.5% at Taylor & Francis in the first five months (excluding non-recurring data access contracts), with good performances in Subscriptions, Open Research and Advanced Learning. On track for 4% full year underlying growth. ' Bookbrunch this morning

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/06/16/a... Let's all go back to the OA arguments of >10 years ago! Shows importantly state jurisdictional divergence remains very important, even in STEM publishing...

Not unimportantly, Emerald was also the largest publisher of any kind in the UK based north of Cambridge (in Bingley, Yorks). Not sure where that title goes now?

'Scholarly publishing should move beyond the journal article as the dominant “unit of value”, as this is increasingly out of step with how modern research is conducted, according to the open access publisher Plos.' Ahem. Have you heard of books? Or operas? Or installetions/exhibitions?

The issue with this piece, or at any rate its headline, is that thus far AI shows no sign whatsoever of eating the big beasts of the academic publishing industry. If you look at the actual results of the major players,orienting their businesses actively to embrace AI, the world seems to rumble on…

This notion was of course central to the launch proposition of all of the Universities of Technology. My late Dad (founding Maths faculty at Bath) spent significant chunks of of the 1960s and 1970s visiting students on various forms of industrial placement across the UK.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... A must-read on our present discontents

Bloomsbury Academic 'see encouraging signs of recovery with good growth in all territories in the current financial year. We announced our first participation in AI licensing for academic content in July 2025, and saw the outperformance of our Academic & Professional Division over the past year.'

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/05/19/w... Important post from Lisa H, although inevitably such a strategy suggests a level of organisational resource many smaller H&SS imprints won't have. It was quite possible to be an editor for a major UP for 30 years and never speak to a librarian once...

Bookbrunch on Springer Nature Q1 results: 'Revenue increased to €451.4m (Q1 2025: €450.3m) with 6.2% underlying growth, driven by Research, with continued strength in full OA...Adjusted operating profit of €106.7m (Q1 2025: €107.9m) represented underlying growth of 8.6%'. The old world rumbles on...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5tG... In memory of the great Beverley Martyn, RIP at 79, here is the fabulous John the Baptist from J and B's Stormbringer LP. One of my favourite tracks on the mighty 4-album Electric Muse compilation.

'Funding will continue to support transitional agreements, but from 2028/29 UKRI funding will focus on fully OA publishing and will no longer be available for hybrid OA.' UKRI OA announcement this morning

Springer Nature and Jisc have renewed their Open Access agreement, 'building on a decade of partnership to expand access to UK-led research.' Bookbrunch today...

Chances of funders mandating Diamond OA for STEM on any kind of meaningful global scale seem to me precisely zero. Key challenge for research libraries seems the increasingly divergent paths of STEM and AHSS towards any kind of Open future…

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…