Quality meeting covered on Bookseller.comA report of the Oxford meeting on quality in academic and educational publishing was published on Bookseller.com on 27 November 2008. A report of the Oxford meeting on quality in academic and educational publishing was published on Bookseller.com on 27 November 2008. Under the title ‘Outsourcing skills is “suicidal” say staff’, the report carried quotes from two Oxford NUJ activists and a number of other unnamed sources. It also publicised the online quality audit that Steve Ball from the Brookes International Centre for Publishing Studies has agreed to set up, claiming the site will be live by the end of the year.
The article has attracted a great deal of attention, ensuring that our call for action in defence of quality gets a far wider audience. Suzanne Collier, a well known commentator and advisor on careers in book publishing, posted the following comment to the Bookseller report.
‘This isn't unique to Educational and Academic Publishing – it is happening across the industry and has been happening for YEARS. Publishers need to invest in their in-house staff – they will reap the benefits. I have been coaching a number of people within the industry to help them adapt to the changes of inhouse/outsourcing so that they don't lose out in the skills they need to do their job well and be the first choice for promotion.
As well as companies relying on outsourcing, when it comes to making cutbacks it is the outsourced staff that go first, leaving more burden on an unskilled in-house employee. It is time for change.’
Another comment, this one by Josephine Bacon, said ‘You don't have to wait ten years for this to happen, it is happening right now and not just in academic publishing but in commercial publishing, especially highly illustrated books.
I have just finished writing a book for a publisher for whom I worked in-house as an editor 20 years ago. It is clear from the way they are working that they no longer have in-house design staff or copy editors at all, and many of the senior staff have no previous publishing experience and certainly no production experience. And then there are those who are – even now with all the negative anecdotal experience – still outsourcing production work to India. Quality has taken a flying leap out of the window!’
The Bookseller article can be found at http://www.thebookseller.com/news/71675-outsourcing-skills-is-suicidal-say-staff.html.
AW 2008-12-03
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