What is a University Press? | Martin Paul Eve | Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing

"I was having a pretty good week last week, until we got to the closing minutes of play. At that point, I learned that Amsterdam University Press (AUP) had been acquired by the for-profit corporate publishing behemoth Taylor & Francis. This is not really a surprise in some ways. AUP had been transformed into a private, for-profit enterprise in 2019.

So who cares? What’s the big deal? Well, I am a big fan of putting my labour where my values are. For some years, I had worked, with Tom Grady, on implementing the Opening the Future model of funding for open access books. It has long been my belief that among the core questions animating the OA books scene is “how [can] scholarly publishing achieve real sustainability for funding OA books?” This model was one suggestion for how revenue streams could be generated that do not rely on exclusionary Book Processing Charges....

But the personal tragedy of this “partnership” for me, now, is that I have given a load of my work and time to Taylor & Francis. It’s tragic whether they use the model, or not. If not, then all that work has gone down the drain; a footnote of historical business models, with years of time invested to no avail (although it’s still in use elsewhere!) If they do use it, then I have handed a tool to the for-profit publishers...."