OBP Summer Newsletter

Welcome to our Summer newsletter!

Dive in to discover our:

• ANNOUNCEMENTS
• NEW AND FORTHCOMING BOOKS
• CALLS FOR PROPOSALS
• A CLOSER LOOK: BLOGS, VLOGS, EVENTS & INTERVIEWS

Also, remember our latest MARC records are now available here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Open Educational Resources list: As we get closer to the beginning of the academic year, and specially in a time when remote learning is the 'new normal', make sure to take advantage of this list of high-quality, Open Access books and textbooks we have curated for you. Everything on this list is freely accessible with no log-in, fees or subscriptions required; it's collated by us but we welcome contributions. You can email your suggestions to Laura Rodriguez at laura@openbookpublishers.com

Open Access Book Network (OABN) With colleagues at OAPEN, OPERAS and Sparc Europe, we are launching a new network to discuss and share information about developments in OA books!  

OBP has made it to the Top 100 of the NatWest SE100 Index 2020! Once again OBP has made it to the SE100 Index. This award celebrates the growth, impact and resilience of social ventures in the UK by recognising the most impressive 100 social enterprises of the year. You can find the full list containing the top 100 here.

NEW AND FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

This summer we have seen the release of exciting and innovative new titles:

Environmental Studies:

Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing, by Sam Mickey, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and John Grim (eds.). Click here to access.

Semitic Languages and Cultures:

Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew, by Shai Heijmans (ed.). Click here to access.

Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions, by Aaron Hornkohl and Geoffrey Khan (eds.). Click here to access.  

Jewish-Muslim Intellectual History Entangled: Textual Materials from the Firkovitch Collection, Saint Petersburg, by Camilla Adang, Bruno Chiesa, Omar Hamdan, Wilferd Madelung, Sabine Schmidtke and Jan Thiele (eds). Click here to access.

Languages and Linguistics:

Creative Multilingualism: A Manifesto, by Katrin Kohl, Rajinder Dudrah, Andrew Gosler, Suzanne Graham, Martin Maiden, Wen-chin Ouyang and Matthew Reynolds (eds.). Click here to access.

A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law, by Jeffrey Love, Inger Larsson, Ulrika Djärv, Christine Peel, and Erik Simensen. Click here to access.

Simplified Signs: A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations, Volume 1 & Volume 2, by John D. Bonvillian, Nicole Kissane Lee, Tracy T. Dooley and Filip T. Loncke. Click here to access.
Archeology and Classical Studies:

Sailing from Polis to Empire: Ships in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic Period  by Emmanuel Nantet (ed.). Click here to access.
Economics, Politics and Sociology:

A European Public Investment Outlook, by Floriana Cerniglia and Francesco Saraceno (eds). Click here to access.

Discourses We Live By: Narratives of Educational and Social Endeavour by Hazel R. Wright and Marianne Høyen (eds). Click here to access.

Forthcoming publications: Click here to visit our forthcoming titles section and find out more about the upcoming titles on topics like vigilantism, war, theatre, lexicography, photography, literature and more!

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Studies on Mathematics Education and Society: This book series publishes high-quality monographs, edited volumes, handbooks and formally innovative books which explore the relationships between mathematics education and society. Click here to find out more about the series and the submission process.                                                  

What do we care about? A Cross-Cultural Textbook for Undergraduate Students of Philosophical Ethics: This book is a bold attempt to remedy the one-sided and narrow narrative textbooks in philosophy have by focusing exclusively on a Western narrative and provides a comprehensive and broad perspective of ethics to undergraduate students.Click hereto find out more about the submission process.

St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture: This series covers the full span of historical themes relating to France: from political history, through military/naval, diplomatic, religious, social, financial, cultural and intellectual history, art and architectural history, to literary culture. Click here for more details.

Global Communications: Global Communications series looks beyond national borders to examine current transformations in public communication, journalism and media. We are currently accepting proposals for this series. Click here if you wish to know more.

A CLOSER LOOK: BLOGS, VLOGS, EVENTS & INTERVIEWS

New Blog Posts:

The Possibility of Signs: This is the first of a series of blog post on one of our latest titles Simplified Signs: A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations. Read William B. Bonvillian's reflections on the Simplified Signs project.

‘Thieves’ marks’ and ‘tinder-wolves’: The Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law: Read Adèle Kreager's take on our new title A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law.

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.): Read Domenic Rotundo's reflections on our forthcoming book Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).

Photography and Protest: Deborah Willis, Chair of Photography & Imaging at Tisch New York University and co-editor of Women and Migration, shares her powerful reflections about photography, history and protest in the context of the BLM movement.

A Kids’ Book about Plague from a Bygone Century:Author Jan M. Ziolkowski considers the relationships between sickness, stories and sweetness in this discussion of children's book 'The Acrobat and the Angel' and its relationship to The Juggler of Notre Dame.

A Charred Cathedral in Paris and A Modern Masterpiece in Glass: Le Jongleur de Notre Dame: Author Jan M. Ziokowski meditates on the relationship between glass, storytelling and hope.

The key to cracking down on climate change? Cracking out the books: Claudia Griffiths discusses Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa, a groundbreaking Open Access textbook aiming to inspire a future generation of conservationists to reverse detrimental ecological damage.

Margery Spring Rice: A Life Retold: Read Wendy Mach's reflections on how Lucy Pollard’s biography brings to life one of the great personalities behind the birth control movement.

Margery Spring Rice: Pioneer of Women’s Health in the Early Twentieth Century: In this new blog Dr Lucy Pollard, author of Margery Spring Rice: Pioneer of Women’s Health in the Early Twentieth Century, reflects on her new title and her role as a biographer.

The cost of Open Access books: a publisher writes: OBP lays out our costs and revenue for the last financial year (2018 - 2019), to add some numbers to discussions about funding OA books.

Library Support for OA Books Workshop: the German perspective: this report by Agata Morka offers fascinating insights into the Open Access landscape in Germany.

OBP's draft response to the UKRI Open Access consultation: Here we share our draft response to UKRI's Open Access consultation.

Vlog Series:

In this Vlog series, Mary Evelyn Tucker takes the readers on a journey through one of our latest Open Access titles: Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing (edited by Sam Mickey, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and John Grim) by interviewing the contributors of each chapter and exploring the ideas behind the project. Watch the complete series here.
Events and Interviews:

View this interview with William B. Bonvillian (Lecturer at MIT, Senior Director at MIT Open Learning) which introduces Simplified Signs: A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations, which was co-written by William's late brother, John Bonvillian. William chats with us about the Simplified Signs project, how it came about, who was involved and what it seeks to achieve. You can watch the full interview here.

Online Book Launch: Join us for the online book launch of our new OA title Simplified Signs: A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations by John Bonvillian, Nicole K. Lee, Tracy T. Dooley and Filip T. Loncke.
When: Thursday 3rd September 2020 at 4 p.m. BST / 11 a.m. EST
How: Via Zoom
We encourage attendants to register to the event at https://tinyurl.com/SignsOBL and to leave their questions before the online launch here.

Get to Know Us - An Interview with Adèle Kreager: Find out more about our Editor, Adèle Kreager. Click here to know more about her career, her editorial role and the most challenging aspects of her work.

Chat with us! Chat with our team at our open drop-in sessions on Mondays at 5pm UK time. Find out more about publishing with us and the work we do!
When: Monday 7th September at 5pm (UK time).
How: click here to connect to our Zoom channel.

If there are any thoughts you would like to share with us about this newsletter or our work in general, please email laura@openbookpublishers.com or contact us on Twitter or Facebook.