The Elephant Roundup (January 2021)

An occasional newsletter from the editors of Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications.

Here's where we share links to news stories, updates, and announcements of interest to Feeding the Elephant readers.

Libraries & Librarianship

• “I'm Still Speaking: Amplifying the Black Experience in LIS" (The 2020 Augusta Baker Fall Forum), November 11, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tUZoY43fUA&feature=emb_err_woyt

  • The 2020 Augusta Baker Fall Forum took place on November 19, 2020. This session featured a Q&A style conversation with five Black librarians who shared their candid and informative experiences with the LIS profession.

Acquisitions

• Laura Portwood-Stacer, “Landing an Academic Book Contract,” Medium, https://medium.com/@lportwoodstacer/landing-an-academic-book-contract-c8e9ff43dfef

  • Laura wrote for a WWYE post for the Elephant a while back. Here is another perennially helpful post for scholars just starting the publishing process.

• “Talking Acquisitions & University Press Publishing,” MSU Press Podcast, November 23, 2020, https://share.transistor.fm/s/e7519b08. 

  • Conversation with MSU Press acquisitions editors Catherine Cocks and Caitlin Tyler-Richards.

Open Access

• Dr. Frances Pinter, “Knowledge Infrastructures, Monographs and Why Open Access Must be Part of the Post Pandemic ‘New Normal,’” Oh the Humanities! blog, August 26, 2020. h/t H-HistBibl

  • From the author: “I believe that with some much overdue changes to the way we publish monographs, we can use this crisis to mark a commitment to reducing costs while improving dissemination of these specialist monographs that provide the foundational basis for development in the HSS subjects.”

• “Exclusive: Knowledge Unlatched Flips the Pluto Journals to Open Access,” Publishing Perspectives, January 11, 2021. https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/01/exclusive-knowledge-unlatched-flips-the-pluto-journals-to-open-access/

  • Pluto Journals is an “independent publisher of social science and humanities journals...on a variety of subjects including politics, current affairs, international studies, law, political economy, and Arab and Islamic studies.”

• “Springer Nature CEO Vrancken Peeters: Case for Gold Open Access,” Publishing Perspectives, January 12, 2021.https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/01/springer-nature-vrancken-peeters-at-academic-publishing-in-europe-trust-is-the-basis/

  • Springer Nature CEO Frank Vrancken Peeters's keynote address at Berlin’s 2021 Academic Publishing in Europe conference focused on "openness and transparency."

Podcasts

• New Books Network podcast series on Scholarly Communications, https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/special-series/scholarly-communications.

  • Interviews with authors and editors about a variety of publishing topics, from the New Books Network.

• Conversations with Publishers, The Hedgehog & the Fox podcast, https://www.podularity.com/thehedgehogandthefox/category/conversations-with-publishers/.

  • Interviews with an impressive number of university press directors and publishing professionals about how presses make decisions.

• Livewriters, https://www.livewriters.com/

  • From the site: “Livewriters curates an engaging, immersive, user-friendly experience where a diverse collection of the most important and compelling podcasts about books, authors and publishing can be shared and enjoyed.”

Fiscal Health of Colleges & Universities.

• Eleni Schirmer, “It’s Not Just Students Drowning in Debt. Colleges Are Too!,” The Nation, November 20, 2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/student-debt-university-credit/. 

  • “As the federal government has dialed back funds, universities have turned to debt financing to keep their doors open.” Not specifically about publishing, but the fiscal health of colleges and universities certainly trickles down through the entire publishing and library ecosystem.

The Humanities

• “The Humanities in American Life: Insights from a 2019 Survey of the Public’s Attitudes & Engagement,” American Academy of Arts & Sciences, November 2020, https://www.amacad.org/publication/humanities-american-life.

  • In case anyone needed a reminder--or data!

If you have a link you'd like us to consider in a future newsletter, please reply to this post, email us, or tag us on Twitter @HNetBookChannel.