Open Book Publishers - Spring Newsletter - May 2023
Welcome to our Spring Newsletter!
We have information on our open Call for Proposals, updates including our Author Survey and our involvement with the OBF, new and forthcoming publications and latest reviews, interviews, features and blogs.
Dive in to find out more about what's been happening as well as our plans for the months ahead...
Announcements
• Authors' Survey
• Open Book Publishers and the Open Book Collective
• COPIM and Open Book Futures (OBF)
• Open Access Books Network
• Crowdsourcing: 'Health Care in the Information Society' by David Ingram
Books, Readership and Content
• Featured Book
• New Open Access Publications
• Forthcoming Open Access Publications
• New Blogs and Resources
• Call for Proposals
• Latest Reviews
Authors' Survey
We would like to ask for your feedback on the publishing process with us. We would also like to collect demographic data about our authors, editors, and contributors to help us form a better picture of the communities we interact with – and the gaps in representation that need addressing. This data will remain private and the identities of those individuals who agree to participate will not be disclosed under any circumstance. If you are one of our authors, editors, or contributors please, click here to access the survey.
If you haven't published with us and want to find out more about what it’s like, email Professor Caroline Warman (caroline.warman@Jesus.ox.ac.uk), author of The Atheist's Bible: Diderot's ‘Éléments de physiologie’ (2020) and translator of Denis Diderot 'Rameau's Nephew' – 'Le Neveu de Rameau': A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition (2nd ed., 2016) and Tolerance: The Beacon of the Enlightenment (2016).
Open Book Publishers and the Open Book Collective
Three months have passed since we officially announced that we had joined the Open Book Collective (OBC). Since then, many current library members have decided to renew their Open Book Publishers Membership via the collective and support a fairer OA book publishing ecosystem.
The Open Book Collective has been developed by the COPIM Project, an international partnership funded by Research England and Arcadia Fund. COPIM is building non-profit, community-owned infrastructure to support a resilient future for open access book publishing that enables smaller and more community-focused presses to thrive and multiply. Open Book Publishers is a leading member of the COPIM Project and has been involved in helping to build the Collective.
If you are a library member and would like to find out more about the collective or renew through them, contact our Marketing and Library Relations Officer, Laura Rodriguez, at laura@openbookpublishers.com.
We would also like to invite you to read our official announcement where we explain why we’re joining the Collective and what this will mean for libraries (including our current Library Members), our authors and our readers.
COPIM and Open Book Futures (OBF)
Open Book Publishers (OBP) is delighted to announce that we are part of a diverse international team leading a new open infrastructure initiative, Open Book Futures (OBF), to significantly advance the systems that support community-owned Open Access (OA) book publishing.
Funded by Arcadia and the Research England Development (RED) Fund and led by Lancaster University, Open Book Futures will build on the pioneering work of the COPIM project, in which OBP has been a key partner. This will involve a significant expansion of key COPIM infrastructures built by OBP developers Javier Arias and Ross Higman: the Thoth metadata management platform and the forthcoming Thoth Archiving Network. It will also include the development of technical protocols and infrastructure to enable presses to better integrate accessibility requirements into their workflows.
Find out more at https://blogs.openbookpublishers.com/open-book-publishers-takes-leading-role-in-project-to-significantly-expand-open-access-book-infrastructures/
Open Access Books Network
The Open Access Books Network (OABN) has recently undergone a website redesign and has made available to veryone a new 'Resources' page which includes key resources for libraries, publishers, authors and funders and links to past events recordings.
To access this material please, visit, https://openaccessbooksnetwork.hcommons.org/resources/
Crowdsourcing: Health Care in the Information Society by David Ingram
We are seeking support from individual citizens, companies, and health care organizations across the world to make this book free to download and read by anyone, anywhere, anytime, irrespective of their financial means.
Download this document if you would like to contribute to the publication costs of Health Care in the Information Society.
Featured Book
Dire Straits-Education Reforms: Ideology, Vested Interests and Evidence by Montserrat Gomendio and José Ignacio Wert
This is the first comprehensive examination of OECD’s PISA surveys and policy recommendations by insiders that go beyond the ideological battles and mainstream narratives of ‘what works’ to improve our failing education systems. The book is extremely well argued and substantiated with a vast amount of evidence and, without a doubt, will be a critical source for those concerned about the present and future status of education systems not only of the OECD countries but also low-income countries.
Susanne Wiborg, UCL Institute of Education, University College London
Drawing on their experiences as policymakers in the Spanish government and as governmental advisors worldwide, Montserrat Gomendio and Jose Ignacio Wert produce a publication like no other, shifting the usual Eurocentric narrative and shedding light on frequently overlooked educational policies from elsewhere. In this context, they dive deeper into details of educational failures and successes, the processes of implementation and investment priorities in different countries. They provide revealing accounts of stakeholder conflicts of interest and the challenges of implementing educational reform during a financial crisis.
The authors also investigate why the evidence from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) has, contrary to expectation, not generated improvements in most education systems. Gomendio and Wert investigate the evolution of different education systems, closely examining their advances or declines. Gomendio and Wert’s expert voices illuminate the current state of global education systems and the necessary changes to ensure long-awaited improvements. This is a revelatory and informative resource for policymakers, teachers and academics alike.
Featured Resources:
[video] 'Dire Straits-Education Reforms' - An Interview with Montserrat Gomendio and José Ignacio Wert
[article]PISA: Mission Failure: With so much evidence from student testing, why do education systems continue to struggle? Read this article by author Montse Gomendio
[article] La reforma imposible de la educación
New Open Access Publications
These past months we have released 8 new Open Access titles:
The Poetic Edda: A Dual-Language Edition by Edward Pettit
Susan Isaacs: A Life Freeing the Minds of Children by Philip Graham
The Last Years of Polish Jewry: Volume 1: At the Edge of the Abyss: Essays, 1927–33 by Yankev Leshchinsky, ed. and trans. by Robert Brym, trans. by Eli Jany
Introduction to Systems Biology: Workbook for Flipped-classroom Teachingby Thomas Sauter and Marco Albrecht
Touching Parchment: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Handled, and Kissed Their Manuscripts: Volume 1: Officials and Their Books by Kathryn M. Rudy
The Last Man Who Knew Everything: Thomas Young by Andrew Robinson; Foreword by Martin Rees.
An Introduction to Andalusi Hebrew Metrics by José Martínez Delgado
Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe by Olga Burlyuk and Ladan Rahbari (eds)
As always, these titles are freely available to read and download at www.openbookpublishers.com.
Blogs
Susan Isaacs: Second Edition by Philip Graham.
Open Book Publishers takes leading role in £5.8 million project to significantly expand open access book infrastructuresby Open Book Publishers.
Professors, Polymaths and Progress: Learning from Thomas Young@250 by Andrew Robinson
Resources
The audiovisual resources supplementing specific chapters and providing brief and accessible introductions to the key components of the filmmaking process created for our Open Access title Documentary Making for Digital Humanists are now available:
[video]Lesson 1: Getting Started
[video]Lesson 2: How to Get Resources for your Documentary
[video]Lesson 3: Choose your Camera and Equipment
[video]Lesson 4: Planning your Production
[video]Lesson 5: How to Capture Cinematic Footage
[video]Lesson 6: How to Use the Rule of Thirds to Create Cinematic Shots
[video]Lesson 7: How to Get Ready for an Interview
[video]Lesson 8: How to Film an Interview
[video]Lesson 9: A Step-by-Step Guide on Editing a Documentary in Adobe Premiere
[video]Lesson 10: How to Make a Documentary
Latest Reviews
Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach by Richard S. Lewis
In sum, Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject is a complex new approach to media literacy that is well-supported by conceptual framing and includes excellent support from various domains of the literature. There are rich ideas throughout, and this piece definitely adds nuance to an already challenging series of questions surrounding media, and media literacy. The contemporary media technology landscape will likely continue to evolve at a breakneck pace, and hopefully Lewis’ work can help us all (scholars, educators, practitioners, and end users) think a bit more deliberately about if and how we engage with the next new thing on the horizon.
James Jarc, COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS, vol. 41, no. 4
Making the Void Fruitful: Yeats as Spiritual Seeker and Petrarchan Lover by Patrick J. Keane
Valuable to scholars and students alike, this study offers a comprehensive reading of two strands--Yeats's various engagements with the occult and his fascination with his Muse, Maud Gonne--that undergird Yeats's poetry.
J. S. Baggett
CHOICE connect, vol. 60, no. 9, 2023
The Poetic Edda: A Dual-Language Edition by Edward Pettit
Having this work published, especially in Open Access, is a great service to readers and students of Norse mythology. The work is entertaining enough that anyone interested in the Middle Ages, especially the Viking world, should check it out. The printed version of this text goes nearly 900 pages, making it quite a tome.
The Diaries of Anthony Hewitson, Provincial Journalist, Volume 1: 1865–1887by Andrew Hobbs
The diaries help us understand the conditions of Victorian news production and the communications ecology that begins with a reporter sitting in a police court, railway station or at a Board of Guardians meeting, via columns in provincial newspapers, and ending in the paragraphs published in the national Times and Daily Telegraph … Hewitson’s diaries reveal to us the life of the anonymous, forgotten, provincial reporter, the social and commercial networks he forged and his methods of news gathering … Hewitson’s access to new developments … reveal the privileged role of the reporter in witnessing, and communicating modernity … In this current era when traditional local newspaper journalism is under severe pressure leading to so-called ‘local democratic deficit’, it is worth reminding ourselves of the dense network of local news coverage that existed in Victorian Britain … We must thank Andrew Hobbs for his careful and painstaking editing, the helpful footnotes as well as the useful chronology, family tree and glossary of archaic words. These diaries are a valuable contribution to Victorian press history and social history and represent an opportunity to show to students the life of an “ordinary” journalist and the conditions under which he produced his copy.
Sarah Lonsdale, Journalism, 2023. doi:10.1177/14648849231170489
Engaging with Everyday Sounds by Marcel Cobussen
I know I’ll be listening to my kettle boiling differently now, while considering its place within New Materialism. [...] I will concede that my ears have been changed – improved – by his book. [...] It reads as an odd but intriguing dance between wordy, reference-heavy musicology and enchanted poetic response to vital, emotive things.
Andrew Mellor, Seismograf, 2023.
Engaging with Everyday Sounds articulates philosophical thought and sound worlds in a new way. It is not a question here of developing a philosophy of sound but rather of thinking from sound, according to sound. [...] A book which nourishes and contributes toward developing a new philosophy particularly relevant for the time to come.
Jean-Paul Thibaud, Journal of Sonic Studies, 2023.
Shaping the Digital Dissertation: Knowledge Production in the Arts and Humanities by Virginia Kuhn and Anke Finger (eds)
Due to the increasing impact of digital humanities scholarship worldwide (Edmond et al., 2020), this edited volume will benefit significantly as a primary source for scholars, early career researchers, and postgraduate students interested in presenting their research findings through digital dissertations. [...] These expert opinions are significant because most of the authors who contributed to the chapters of the first section are experts in digital scholarship-related themes, such as PhD advisors, authors, librarians, digital humanities activities, and publishers.
Muhammad Imran & Norah Almusharraf, Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 2023. doi:10.1080/13504630.2023.2194625
Reading the Juggler of Notre Dame: Medieval Miracles and Modern Remakings by Jan M. Ziolkowski
The range of the book is truly impressive [...] Ziolkowski's work gives ample opportunity to ask new questions of these ancient and modern sources and has set a new standard for the study of exempla.
Jean A. Truax, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 4, 2023.
