The Charleston Conference is so excited to feature several excellent Neapolitan Sessions at our upcoming event in November!

For those of you who are new to the Charleston Conference, you might be thinking, “What in the world is a Neapolitan Session anyway?” Designed to be of interest to a broad audience, but drilling down a bit more into specifics than the plenary sessions, these are “mini plenaries” that are run simultaneously in three large ballrooms. Since there are three sessions/flavors at a time, we went with a classic tri-flavored ice cream theme!

We have three different time slots for the Neapolitans – one each on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the conference weeks. The dates are November 2, 3, and 4 for the in-person conference, and November 16, 17, and 18 for the virtual conference. Today’s blog post highlights the Wednesday sessions.

Wednesday, November 2 (In Person) and November 16 (Online):
2:45 – 3:30 PM Eastern

1. Why Should We Care About Bibliodiversity in Academic Book Publishing? The Implications of Regional Identity for American University Presses

Presented by Charles Watkinson, Associate University Librarian, University of Michigan Library; Lisa Bayer, Director, University of Georgia Press; Jane Bunker, Director, Cornell University Press; and Jason Fikes, Director, Abilene Christian University Press

The term “bibliodiversity” is widely used in Europe to describe the importance of advancing locally-relevant academic publishing in an increasingly consolidated, multinational scholarly communication ecosystem. However, this lens has hitherto not been applied to publishers in the United States and Canada, even though regional identity is central to the work of the more than 100 publishers who include the words “university press” in their names.

As well as having vibrant trade lists dedicated to topics of local interest (natural history, cooking, architecture for example), university presses often bring a distinctively regional perspective to issues of national and international importance. This panel explores how regional identity manifests in the publishing programs of a geographically-diverse group of university presses, both in terms of their lists and the practices they employ in creating, marketing, and selling their books.

A particular focus of the panel is on the opportunities for collaboration between university presses and libraries to preserve and celebrate regional identity. These range from mounting special events and creating ebook collections to joining together in shared advocacy around locally important issues like book banning, information literacy, or accessibility for print-disabled readers that impact the access to high-quality information.

2. Serving Readers by Serving Authors – Content Syndication to Make Discovery = Delivery

Presented by Judson Dunham, Sr. Director of Product Management, Elsevier; Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Professor and Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Todd Toler, Vice President, Product Strategy & Partnerships, Wiley

As publishing increasingly reorients around Open Access through Transformative Agreements, the role of both publishers and librarians is shifting away from a focus on readers as consumers of scholarly content and explicitly towards serving Authors, with a focus on ensuring the widest possible reach of their published work. Two things that haven’t changed are the need for publishers, librarians and authors to understand and measure success within the publishing process – which requires trust and accurate tracking and reporting of content usage – and the need for researchers to have continually better and more seamless tools for discovery. Publishers and librarians must adapt to this evolving landscape: publishers must leave no opportunity unexplored to maximize reach of published work; and librarians have to work even harder to ensure that both their authors and readers are getting the best service from publishers, and that their investments in transformative agreements are paying off.

Our talk will focus on the recent rise of so-called Content Syndication arrangements, through which the Version of Record can be found outside the traditional single-publisher-website content silos, using the recently released content syndication pilot on Elsevier’s ScienceDirect platform as a model. We will discuss what Content Syndication is, why it matters, the enabling technologies, how it can change the roles of publishers, solution providers and librarians as scholarly publishing and research continue to evolve, and what it can mean for the authors and readers we serve.

3. Thriving in an OA future: A Conversation with Wiley’s Jay Flynn

Presented by Heather Staines, Senior Strategy Consultant, Delta Think; Jay Flynn, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Wiley

The publishing industry has seen many transitions, but the shift to OA disrupts conventional business models in a way that earlier shifts, like print to digital, did not. The world is moving ahead at different paces with Europe quietly making a major pivot, while the landscape in the US and beyond is significantly more fragmented. Publishers, and in particular society publishers, may find themselves struggling to navigate these developments. Transformative agreements are changing the publication landscape, but their impact on global research production and consumption is uneven. Adding services to content and developing new revenue streams may be one way to navigate this shift, but new models require new infrastructure and new capabilties. This conversation will address the wider trends in the scholarly communication ecosystem, but with a focus on-the-ground experience and practical steps that are being taken now to ensure future sustainability. The session will be an interview format with Heather Staines asking some starter questions then opening up to audience input.

If you haven’t already registered for this year’s Charleston Conference, it isn’t too late! And if you’re already registered, we’ll be sending out invitations for attendees to set up their profiles and create an agenda on the Cadmore Media platform the week of October 24 so be sure to mark your calendars. You can see our preliminary program now at https://charleston-hub2022.exordo.com/programme/sessions/2022-11-01.