BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC – A NEW PUBLISHING IMPRINT WITH AN OPEN CONTENT BUSINESS MODEL

Bloomsbury Publishing announced today that it is launching into academic publishing with a new imprint: Bloomsbury Academic.

All books will be made available free of charge online, with free downloads, for non-commercial purposes immediately upon publication, using Creative Commons licences. The works will also be sold as books, using the latest short-run technologies or Print on Demand (POD).

The imprint will initially publish in the Social Sciences and Humanities building thematic lists on pressing global issues, with approximately fifty new titles online and in print by the end of 2009.

“We’re committed to more equitable access to knowledge throughout the
world- with a sustainable business model,” said the newly appointed Bloomsbury Academic Publisher Frances Pinter. “In these turbulent times we look forward to working closely with librarians, academics and readers to serve the communication needs of scholars worldwide.”

Bloomsbury Academic will be using the latest solutions in digital publishing and open access, whilst maintaining traditional publishing services. It will provide editorial selection, peer-review, copy-editing and formatting, along with marketing and distribution worldwide. Authors will retain their copyright. Authors will also benefit by attracting more readers and gaining greater peer recognition. Their works will come faster to publication, and not be hidebound by long production and promotion cycles. They can be searched more easily, and need never go out of print.

Bloomsbury Academic’s Advisory Board is almost complete; the following have agreed to serve on the board:

* Professor Hal Abelson -Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT
* Dame Lynne Brindley – CEO British Library
* Professor Reto Hilty – Director, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law
* Professor Robin Mansell – Head of Media and Communications Department, London School of Economics
* Professor John Naughton – Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology, Open University
* Shira Perlmutter – Executive Vice-President, IFPI
* Winston Tabb – Dean of University Libraries, Johns Hopkins University

The Bloomsbury Academic platform (www.bloomsburyacademic.com) will also be available to showcase and promote other publishers’ titles. The initiative is not exclusively in the English language and Bloomsbury’s German partner, Berlin Verlag, will be participating actively. Neither is the programme geographically bound with Bloomsbury USA involved in North America and Bloomsbury in discussion with Melbourne University Publishing to showcase the best of Australian scholarship.

Frances Pinter will be Bloomsbury Academic’s Publisher, joining Managing Director Jonathan Glasspool. Pinter, who set up her own academic publishing house (Pinter Publishers) at the age of 23, was Publishing Director at the Soros Foundation and has recently been involved in promoting Creative Commons licencing in projects in South Africa and Uganda.

For further information, please contact:
Katie Bond, Bloomsbury Publicity Director – Tel: +44 (0)207 494 6012,
Mobile: +44 (0)7930 544111 & email: Katie_bond@bloomsbury.com

Notes to Editors:
Bloomsbury Academic – <http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/> – is an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc – <http://www.bloomsbury.com/>

Creative Commons – <http://www.creativecommons.org/> – was founded in 2001 to create more flexible forms of copyright licencing for the digital age.
There are now nearly 300 million Creative Commons licences on the web predominantly in music and film and now increasingly for text.

Katie Bond
Publicity Director & Commissioning Editor
Tel: 020 7494 6012
www.bloomsbury.com <http://www.bloomsbury.com>