On the 14th March 2024, amidst the bustling atmosphere of the London Book Fair's Research and Scholarly Publishing Forum, industry leaders—including Pooja Aggarwal, Director of Academic and Professional Publishing at Bloomsbury; Jim Ramage, Senior Director, Software Engineering at Elsevier; Christie Henry, Director at Princeton University Press; and Mark Collins, Director of Academic at Virtusales Publishing Solutions—came together to explore the ever-evolving landscape of academic publishing. This gathering offered a platform for sharing insights and strategies, providing attendees with an overview of the latest trends and challenges shaping academic publishing today.
Encompassing technological advancements, ethical considerations, accessibility (from both a legislative and equitable stand point), and collaborations driving change within the publishing sector, the session spotlighted the efficiencies and opportunities that academic publishers are leveraging to benefit the supply chain, authors and readers alike.
Opportunities and Efficiencies Enabled by Technology
Highlighting key themes driving innovation and adaptation, our panelists delved into the numerous opportunities enabled by technology and Generative AI, emphasizing their potential to elevate the quality of all published materials (from books and journals to articles and Open Access publications); enhance accessibility through features like ALT text and closed captioning; and accelerate publishing processes and coding to allow publishers to scale up quickly and enhance staff roles, rather than replacing them. Jim Ramage heralded automation in particular as a transformative force, capable of streamlining the publishing process, reducing costs, and increasing efficiencies to benefit stakeholders across the board. Additionally, technology and assistive tools open up publishers’ extensive backlist catalogs, streamlining data exchange between publishers and their business partners, and alleviate and facilitate manual, labor intensive processes such as peer review, reference checking and GDPR compliance.
“All aspects of the publishing cycle—end-to-end—can be speeded up, enhanced, automated, and can take out costs. That benefits all stakeholders in the industry, absolutely everyone, and that's a positive thing.” - Jim Ramage, Senior Director, Software Engineering, Elsevier
Trust, Transparency and Collaboration
Throughout the conversation, trust and transparency emerged as crucial for successful publishing endeavors. The panel emphasized the importance of fostering trust in partnerships and content delivery, particularly in an era marked by increasing scrutiny and demand for authenticity. Christie Henry addressed AI’s ethical implications, highlighting publishers’ role as custodians of the IP entrusted to them. She emphasized the need for wide dissemination whilst prioritizing credit, consent and compensation and noted that effective collaboration requires publishers to clarify not only why they are scaling and speeding up their processes but what this extra time is enabling them to do; fostering trust and transparency to build strong relationships.
“The issue of trust and transparency is really key [...] Fundamentally, we’re all here to educate, inspire and inform, and I think the more we share, the more we learn from each other, the more we partner and collaborate, it can only lead to good things.” - Pooja Aggarwal, Director of Academic and Professional Publishing, Bloomsbury
Challenges and Considerations
Amidst the opportunities, the panel also candidly discussed the risks and challenges inherent in navigating the digital landscape. Concerns such as the proliferation of fake products, research integrity tools, data privacy vulnerabilities, and legal complexities (including the use of publishers’ IP to train AI models) underscored the need for vigilance and adaptation in an environment characterized by rapid change. Investment in accessibility owing to the forthcoming European 2025 Accessibility Act, especially in terms of how much and when to invest, was identified as a potential risk to publishers as it is not yet clear what compliance looks like. Equally, the panel noted that the costs involved could be untenable for smaller publishers. Furthermore, AI was flagged as a potential tool to mitigate unconscious biases in recruitment, onboarding and acquisitions, and widen the talent pool to attract a diverse workforce representative of society.
“If people can’t trust the content that we’re delivering, that’s a real problem for us, so I think it does come back to those values we hold dear, and how we can enhance that with AI, rather than replace that. That’s really at the crux of what we’re all trying to grapple with as publishers with AI.” - Pooja Aggarwal, Director of Academic and Professional Publishing, Bloomsbury
Values and Vision: Promoting Accessibility and Inclusivity
The imperative to promote accessibility and inclusivity in academic publishing was a recurring theme throughout the discussion. Striving to comply with accessibility regulations and initiatives such as the European 2025 Accessibility Act was spotlighted as a testament to the industry's commitment to inclusivity and collaboration. This commitment not only aligns with publishers' missions and values but also creates new business opportunities, industry partnerships and revenue streams, helping them to reach more readers and build lasting relationships.
“Accessibility is absolutely mission critical to ensure the content we have is available and accessible to every reader, wherever they are, and however they enjoy and are able to access it. The Accessibility Act will act as a catalyst for collaboration between publishers and working with authors too.” - Christie Henry, Director, Princeton University Press
Christie Henry and Pooja Aggarwal in particular emphasized publishers’ responsibility to nurture talent and make content accessible to the wider market, noting that collaboration allows publishers to “do things we can’t do by ourselves”. For instance, Princeton University Press recently partnered with Planeta to publish Spanish-language editions within the press’ own territory, benefiting everyone involved but especially readers. Furthermore, Pooja Aggarwal stressed the importance of utilizing connections, conducting workshops and surveys, and beyond to ensure widespread distribution of content, identify areas for further development, and to give voice to under-represented communities. Afterall, accessibility extends beyond content access, and is often dependent on the price of access or access via libraries for lower income families.
“When we talk about accessibility, we are not just talking about the products and services that you publish, or the internal tools that your staff and colleagues use, but also accessibility in terms of DEI initiatives to find and nurture talent, to find voices from under-represented communities.” - Mark Collins, Director of Academic, Virtusales Publishing Solutions
Social and Environmental Impacts
Finally, the panel touched on technology as a powerful tool for driving positive social and environmental change for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and sustainability. Jim Ramage noted that, according to the MIT Press, the training of one average language model produces the same carbon volume as the average lifetime of 5 cars. While aspects like this receive less coverage from a sustainability perspective, it reinforces the importance of sharing models, collaborating, and sharing successes and failures to better the industry and green the supply chain.
“All high performance computing requires a lot of resources and uses a lot of resources. And that’s maybe a little bit of an inconvenient truth.” - Jim Ramage, Senior Director, Software Engineering, Elsevier
In conclusion, the London Book Fair 2024 Research and Scholarly Forum offered a compelling glimpse into the future of academic publishing. By embracing technological advancements, fostering collaboration, and prioritizing inclusivity, publishers stand poised to navigate the complexities of the digital age while continuing to advance the publication and dissemination of content, knowledge and ideas.
If you’d like to learn more about Virtusales’ academic and scholarly community and the ways BiblioSuite software can support your publishing house to achieve its goals, contact us today.
Alternatively, to find out more about the rapidly-evolving role of technology in publishing, and its increasing prominence and importance in day-to-day publishing processes to further efficiencies, check out our 2023 panel write-up: Agent of Change: The Role of Technology in Publishing.