Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) 2024 Meeting Report

By Heather Staines (Director of Community Engagement and Senior Consultant, Delta Think)

The scholarly communications community gathered in September in Manchester, UK, for the ALPSP Annual Conference to discuss issues of broad concern from the future of Open Access, Artificial Intelligence, and Sustainability, to Research Integrity. This meeting traditionally kicks off the fall (in the Northern hemisphere) travel sprint that leads up to the OASPA meeting, the Frankfurt Bookfair, and ultimately the Charleston Library Conference. (I sometimes joke that, during this period, I see colleagues more than I see my family.) This was the third year that the organizers had selected Manchester to host, and the historic city doesn’t disappoint, despite some overcast skies and cooler temperatures. (The venue is a brief walk from the ruins of a Roman fort, the Mamucium, and the marvelous round Portico Library, built between 1802-1806.)

Keynote speaker Jake Okechukwu Effoduh, Assistant Professor at Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University, set the tone with his talk: Scholarly Publishing in the Era of Open Access and Generative AI, touching on the tensions of open access initiatives in “democratizing access to scholarly content.” As an academic and researcher from the “global south,” Professor Effoduh spoke not just of barriers to accessing research but also of how to promote accessibility to content. In reflecting upon his research journey, he spoke passionately about receiving his first new book as a child and how ownership of that book changed his mindset. He encouraged ALPSP members to collaborate to shape the future of publishing and to pursue innovation. We were fortunate that he was able to stay and participate fully in the whole conference.

An annual highlight is the culmination of the ALPSP’s Impact and Innovation Awards program. After submission and preliminary presentations over the summer, finalists present on the opening day of the meeting, and winners are announced during dinner on the second evening. This year, the Impact Award winner was JSTOR Access in Prison Initiative, which provides academic journals and scholarly resources to the estimated 10.3 million people who are incarcerated globally. The testimonials included in the presentation were both heartbreaking and inspiring. A runner up, The Forest of Biologisits was Highly Commended for their focus on biodiversity. For each article published, and each peer review completed, a tree is planted in the real world with a corresponding virtual forest that anyone can explore.

With wide-ranging alarm about research integrity dominating many conversations, it came as no surprise that the 2024 Innovations award went to The Papermill Alarm by Clear Skies which works to detect fraud before peer review using novel AI Language Models to screen submissions at scale. In addition to these higher profile awards, five early career professionals received the Rising Star Awards — a brand new offering, and industry great David Worlock was honored with the ALPSP Award for Contribution in Scholarly Publishing for his decades-long work preparing publishers for the digital age.

Edu-tainment (education plus entertainment) in the form of a musical was on offer with The Eras Tour: A Scholarly Communications Tour Through Time by yours truly and four enthusiastic players, Jude Perera (Wiley), Romy Beard (Chronoshub), Ravi Venkataramani (Kriyadocs), and Heather Kotula (Access Innovations). As part of a time travel dissertation project, the audience is taken on a journey, first to the year 1610 to learn about the early dissemination of print books, to 2007 when format proliferation of eBooks was rampant, and into the future to see how humans and AIs will work together in the library. (Spoiler: The librarians are the keepers of time travel!) You can read a witty review in the Scholarly Kitchen by Charlie Rapple. (An entirely different musical, also with a time travel bent, will be presented in Charleston during the breakfast time on Friday November 15, so plan ahead!)

Day two of the event began with a timely topic of interest to libraries: Three Months to Go: Are we ready for OA? With the cOAlition S deadline for a shift to OA looming, where are we with transforming journal content? Framed with some numbers gathered by Jisc (Helen Dobson), speakers, including Ben Ashcroft (De Gruyter Brill), Chris Bennett (CUP), and Gaynor Redvers-Mutton (The Biochemical Society), looked into the varying degree of success of transitional agreements, how publishers have navigated the shift, and the overall impact that the funder deadline has had on publication strategies.

Next up, I stuck with the topic of OA, attending a breakout session on the Value of Open Access Books , which focused on maximizing the impact and increasing the reach of such publications with short presentations by Kate Silvester (CUP), James Watson (Taylor and Francis), and Joe Deville (Open Book Collective / Lancaster University). It was wonderful to have a session on books, as sometimes publishing conferences focus exclusively on the journal landscape. A concurrent program India Rising: How Society Publishers can Prepare for the Coming Surge in Quality Submissions created significant attendee buzz around the growth of publishing in India, including challenges and opportunities. I look forward to going back and watching the recorded session.

With my long-running personal interest in exploring new modes of publication, I then attended Deconstructing Journals: Reinventing Research Communication with updates from the Coko Foundation’s collaboration with UC Gump South Pacific Research Station, University of California Berkeley; eLife’s update on Review, Publish, Curate; and the Chief Strategy Officer of WACREN (the West and Central African Research and Education Network). Stephen Pinfield from the University of Sheffield also contributed from his deep interest in this topic. Attendees considered whether we will ever break out of more traditional publishing models to explore other options.

Another highlight of the gathering is the annual quiz. Attendees strategically line up tablemates leading up to the Awards dinner, hoping to create an international, intergenerational powerhouse team that will take the top prize. Topics this year included music, science, and a “table round” on global literature. Teams compete hoping to avoid last place which wins the “Wooden Spoon Award,” and the outcome is always close. I’ve only ever been on one winning team, and this year did not add to that total. Oh well, there’s always next time!

Wherever you go these days, you encounter sessions on Artificial Intelligence, so I was particularly interested in The Role of Human Editors in an AI World. With authors and researchers already using a variety of AI tools, editors find themselves having to counter with tools of their own to ensure the integrity of the scholarly communications record. In a session moderated by Journalology’s James Butcher, speakers included Jessamy Bagenal (The Lancet), Emily Chenette (PLOS One), Ian Mulvany (BMJ). (Also in this same time slot was a session about the impact of AI on workforce development, so I’ll need to go back to watch the video of this one, too!)

Another AI-related topic — licensing of content to AI tools — rounded out the afternoon. Libraries have a vested interest in this area as well, as they increasingly find AI presented as both a feature of their existing tools and also as stand alone products. Publisher licensing efforts also impact researchers who need to have an awareness of what is being done with their works, past, present, and future, and librarians are often finding themselves in a communication and educational role. The development of these products and tools is introducing more complexity into library contracts as well.

The conference concluded, as is traditional, with an industry leaders panel with Lauren Kane (BioOne), Tim Britton (T&F), Sven Fund (Reviewer Credits), Wendy Queen (Project MUSE), and our returning keynote speaker Jake Okechukwu Effoduh (Toronto Metropolitan University). The lively roundtable format enabled attendees to raise discussions about topics covered throughout the meeting, generating, as always, more questions than answers and ensuring that the debate will continue next year — also scheduled for Manchester, UK. So note this on your travel calendars!