The Transformation of Academic Publishing in the Digital Era November 21, 2008

Speaker: Dr Frances Pinter, Publisher at Bloomsbury Academic and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics

The digital era has created untold opportunities to broaden and deepen academic communications. It has also brought into stark relief questions of public versus private goods as new pressures are put on both for and not for profit publishing operations to be sustainable. The role of academic publishers is being challenged, as the often publicly funded research ends up being funnelled through the channels of the private sector. At the same time the Internet makes it possible to simply bypass conventional publishers altogether, though some lament the loss of the added value brought by professional publishing.

Within this context it is clear that new business models need to be constructed. Frances Pinter brings her experiences both as an academic publisher and an academic researcher herself to bear on the ways in which academic publishing needs to transform itself to respond to the opportunities and challenges of the digital age.

About the speaker

Dr Frances Pinter is the newly appointed publisher at Bloomsbury Academic. She is also Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics, where she is researching into the role of civil society and the intellectual property rights reform agenda. She was the founder of Pinter Publishers, and Publishing Director at the Soros Foundation/ Open Society Institute. She has been a consultant to Creative Commons and is running an IDRC funded project called PALM Africa, that is looking at the role of flexible licensing practices and their potential for publishing in Africa.

Official Website: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/events/details.cfm?id=216