Beth Bouloukos, Director at Amherst College Press, reports on visiting UCL Press and others in London

Let me start by expressing so much gratitude to my host at UCL Press, Lara Speicher, who was incredibly generous and welcoming. (My only complaint is that I did not get to see Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton and wax head, which was–sort of incongruously–on loan.) I was fortunate to not only visit UCL Press but also two other fully open access (OA) presses and one society publisher while I was in London. The rain showers and good humor were as plentiful as one can hope for during a trip to London.

Although there are so many amazing OA initiatives now at member presses, as one of the only fully OA AUPresses members located in the US, things can feel a bit lonely. In contrast to this, within a short walk one stumbles upon multiple OA scholarly book publishers in London. Our models may be different in many ways–the most salient being that at Amherst College Press we rarely consider a proposal from our host institution faculty while UK OA publishers tend to mostly publish their home faculty–but we had so much to share and learn from each other.

At UCL Press, many of the conversations I had revolved around how to market OA titles. UCL has stopped doing traditional catalogs and attending disciplinary conferences and finds that more investment in social media outreach propels them forward. UCL’s incredible usage numbers speak to their success in this area, but we concur that is just part of the impact picture. It’s possible that a title can have lower usage but can change a field; it might be reaching audiences that it normally wouldn’t if it were not OA. Telling those stories demonstrates the real impact of OA and we need to figure out how to do that in a more systematic and narrative-based way.

With a growing influx of external authors, UCL Press grapples with balancing institutional roots with a widening reach. Throughout this and other transitions at the press, Lara spoke about maintaining campus support both with faculty and at the administrative level. We also talked about how to train and support staff when we don’t have a lot of internal resources. 

I had numerous conversations about the accessibility of OA books with UCL staff and I learned more about the European standards. This landscape as well as the funding models differ dramatically from the US and it was good to get a better understanding of how things are developing in the UK context.

At LSE Press, a pivot from working with only journals to now publishing books marks a strategic shift. Financing books proves more manageable for them, but diversifying authorship beyond the London School of Economics and Political Science remains a challenge. There are many communication hurdles that we as small and relatively newer presses face, which underscores the need for collaboration. I have reached out to set up an appointment to meet with the press’s communications person to discuss this further.

At Westminster Press we spoke about how being small OA presses makes us nimble and allows for experimentation. We also talked about what author-centric marketing can look like in the OA context. With a focus on relational practices, we can carve out a distinct niche in the scholarly publishing landscape.

Finally, I was able to meet with the publisher of the British Association of Dermatologists with whom I teach an Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) course on peer review. They currently have a lot of initiatives under way to enhance peer review processes that underscore a commitment to scholarly rigor and community engagement. They are currently coding data from a survey of their membership that asked about what incentives for peer review would prompt people to take on this work and I am eagerly awaiting the findings.

Being able to make these connections in person was invaluable and has already led to suggestions to meet with other OA London folks like Paula Kennedy, Head of Publishing, University of London Press. This growing list of mentors and colleagues in the OA world will prove essential as Amherst College Press seeks to further refine our model.

This whirlwind of visits to various publishers shed light on the dynamic challenges and strategies shaping OA scholarly communication. As OA presses navigate this complex terrain, a common thread emerges: the imperative to adapt, innovate, and foster meaningful connections within the scholarly ecosystem. In a landscape marked by rapid change and evolving expectations, these visits offered a glimpse into the vibrant tapestry of what OA publishing looks like at this moment and what it might become in the next few years.