Gold Leaf

Gold Leaf have published a new report on German University Presses, which can be downloaded below or through the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.5584519

Innovations in publishing technology and staunch commitment to Open Access have combined to produce a proliferation of “new” university presses in recent years. Often run by the university’s library by seconding a tiny group of heroically-dedicated librarians, their ethos is very different from that of the traditional university presses – so different, in fact, that the two entities sometimes co-exist and collaborate within the same institution.

This paper examines the objectives, ideals and activities of 6 “new” German university presses, TU Berlin University Press, Göttingen University Press, BIS-Verlag, The Universitätsverlag Potsdam, Universitätsverlag universaar and universi (the University of Siegen Press). All are primarily engaged in Open Access book publishing. The paper explores their ethics and philosophy and the constraints and opportunities which they experience; their relationship with authors; the operational logistics they deploy; and the extent to which they can or may choose to use the services of third parties, including other publishers.

It concludes with an assessment of what the future might hold for these presses and others like them, including whether it is in their interests to grow larger, engage with additional ancillary activities, such as systematic marketing, or find other ways of generating greater revenues. What are the options open to them, if the priority is not to compromise their Open Access ideals?

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

^{(cover photo for this blog post by Lezan @flickr)}

the-german-new-university-press-white-paper Download

Bookselling, Conferences

Back Together Again: The Booksellers Association Conference 2021

September 17, 2021 Gold Leaf

After more than eighteen months of a face-to-face industry events famine, Back Together Again, the 2021 BA Conference which started with the Gardners Trade Show on Sunday 12^th September and continued with the conference itself the following day, was an absolute triumph. It demonstrated that independent booksellers are not only alive and well, but despite all the obstacles put in their way during the pandemic, they’re flourishing – and kicking. As the conference programme unfolded, it became clear that the BA has played no small part in both orchestrating the survival and promoting the bounce-back of independent booksellers throughout the UK and Ireland since the catalogue of extraordinary events which began with the cancellation of the London Book Fair in March 2020.

Andy Rossiter the current President of the BA, raised a laugh when he said he was the first president to have introduced himself to its members eighteen months into a two-year tenure. A former Waterstones employee who with his wife now owns three bookshops in the English / Welsh border country, he described their lucky escape in managing to pull out of a deal on a fourth just as the pandemic struck. He had huge praise for Meryl Halls, MD of the BA, and Nick Bottomley, who had co-ordinated “intense rounds” of talks with publishers on behalf of booksellers throughout all five of the BA’s constituent countries caught up in the fall-out from the pandemic.

Meryl herself compared the last eighteen months with Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling I am, I am, I am, in which the author describes her fifteen brushes with death – and emerges from each of them triumphant and very much alive. She said she had watched with awe as booksellers recalibrated their businesses. Booksellers have emerged from various lockdowns as braver, bolder – and greater in number. The BA now has more than 1,000 bookseller members, most of whom are running or working in independent bookshops. This almost restores the membership to its 2013 levels.

Chris Gregory, of the Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University, showed how his consultancy had teamed up with the BA to help revive and develop High Street bookselling. Footfall in bookshops is still only at 80% of pre-pandemic levels, but it is improving all the time, helped by careful research and analysis into what turns a good bookseller into a superlative one. Factors include opening times (the longer the better), clear methods of book classification, strong and original leadership, offering welcome at all times (e.g., by allowing anyone to use the lavatories, regardless of whether or not they are a customer) and being a force for good in the local community.

Richard Osman, TV personality turned successful crime writer (if you haven’t yet read The Thursday Murder Club, I recommend it wholeheartedly), spoke next. He was eloquent in his praise for what bricks-and-mortar bookshops have achieved: “You have competition that undercuts you at every turn and yet you are taking market share from them – this is something extraordinary – it happens in no other industry.” He said his journey after publishing The Thursday Murder Club had been a remarkable one and that meeting real booksellers was a “genuine joy”.

The theme of booksellers-fighting-back-against-internet-giants was continued by Mark Thornton, Bookshop Partnership Manager and Kiri Inglis, Editorial and Marketing Manager, of Bookshop.org, a company that introduced itself to the UK ten months ago (it has been operational in the USA for somewhat longer) to enable bricks-and-mortar booksellers to extend their reach to people who might not be able to visit their shops, extend their range by enabling them to offer titles they don’t stock and extend their hours by enabling them to sell books when their shops are closed. It also offers exciting solutions for individual authors and for publishers which are well worth investigating.

Fever Pitch, the one-hour session in which publishers pitch their top Christmas and spring titles, was as vibrant and entertaining as usual. Many of the titles also appear in the BA Christmas catalogue, but some of the bigger books featured are not scheduled for publication until next April or May. Not all the publishers were big, powerful ones: the Independent Alliance presented on behalf of several small publishers. Fairlight Books showed some titles. Fairlight enjoyed a particularly good conference – unusually, its staff manned a stand throughout the entirety of the event, showcasing beautiful and original titles and speaking to people who dropped by with great courtesy and good humour.

Among the many points worth noting from Fever Pitch: historical fiction is in the ascendant; crime and literary fiction continue to flourish; memoirs and books about lifestyle choices are likely to be big this Christmas. It is also fascinating that many publishers now offer special editions or specially-signed books to enable independent booksellers to make unique offers to their customers.

A further conference highlight was In Conversation, a debate between Meryl Halls and Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, which was chaired by Philip Jones, Editor of The Bookseller. Allison took up her appointment 8 days after America accepted that a pandemic was in progress. She said that it quickly exposed some cracks: it became apparent that 20% of the USA’s bookshops were in danger of folding. However, booksellers have received huge and concerted commitment from local communities. Sales are bow 75% up against 2020; but additional costs caused by the pandemic still remain high.

Meryl agreed that there was great cause for optimism about the future of bookselling. During the pandemic, “the whole world had had to live with not having a High Street” and there could have been no better way of demonstrating the importance of “shop local”.

Emma Bradshaw, Head of campaigns at the BA, gave a spirited Bookshop Day Update, during which she displayed this year’s Bookshop Day bags. Bookshop Day this year is on Friday 8^th October.

And then the formal part of the programme was over. A veteran of many conferences and events, I can truly say that never have I gone away from one feeling as happy and uplifted as I did from this one. It wasn’t only because it was the first opportunity to socialise with like-minded people for eighteen months – though that, of course played its part – but also because it was exhilarating to feel part of something so creative, successful, ambitious, and – yes – in a good way, defiant.

This blog post strays a little from Gold Leaf’s heartland territory of academic publishing and bookselling. Is it possible to draw conclusions for academic booksellers and publishers from Back Together Again? I would say so: my own takeaways include make all your publications, whatever their nature, beautiful; believe in and love what you sell; love your customers even more; and above all, never accept defeat. Generic lessons for all booksellers, publishers, authors and “others”, whatever part of the industry they inhabit.

And in the UK and Ireland we can burst with pride in the reassurance that the Booksellers Association is always there, working tirelessly to back up all this endeavour.

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Students, Teaching and Learning, Universities

The 2021 – 2022 Academic Year: Covid, academia, academic publishing and Gold Leaf’s birthday!

September 7, 2021 Gold Leaf

Covid is still with us, along with many restrictions and quasi-restrictions, even though this summer has in some ways appeared to be more “normal”, at least in the UK, than last. “Freedom Day” happened, although it was a bit of a damp squib – essentially, it consisted of the government telling us that it is now up to us to behave responsibly. Masks, social distancing and not gathering in large groups are no longer legally enforceable, but we have been warned that reckless behaviour might cause the numbers of infection and deaths to climb so rapidly that the government might have to impose another lockdown (despite the fact that formerly it was adamant that it wouldn’t). Shops, pubs and theatres have opened again, but have been encouraged to impose their own safeguarding rules; travelling abroad has been possible, but less so than last year, achievable only if you are prepared to jump through the many paperwork hoops created by almost all countries, including our own; are fully vaccinated; and prepared to spend quite hefty sums on lateral flow and PCR tests. So, a mixed picture, but perhaps with some light at the end of the tunnel.

And so we have reached the autumn and the start of a new university year. What will be significant about this academic year? What will distinguish it from its predecessors?

A key point that jumps out is that many students who had planned to begin their studies this year have now decided to defer. In certain subjects, at certain universities – e.g., Medicine – they have been offered a hefty financial incentive to do so.

Also in the news recently was that some British universities, including some from the Russell Group, have chartered planes to enable overseas students to travel to the UK without problems – in effect, creating a sort of “academic corridor” akin to the holiday corridors of summer 2020.

Most UK students who are planning to start or continue their courses this year have been told that while there will be more face-to-face teaching than last year, online learning will remain an important component of their tertiary education. Some seem to be dismayed or indignant about this, while others appear philosophical or even pleased. Parents, on the whole, are more vociferous in their disapproval. They perceive online delivery of lectures to be a substandard form of teaching, a “cheat” which does not merit full payment of the now-hefty tuition fees.

Finally, this year’s new cohorts of UK students have not had the traditional A level exams to arrive at their grades. Instead, these have been awarded largely on teacher recommendation. It has been controversial. Were the grades artificially inflated by over-indulgent teachers (or, in some instances, owing to the demands of pushy parents)? Or did the greater reliance on coursework and teacher judgment produce fairer results?

These four issues together are likely to produce a very different kind of student experience from that of pre-Covid years (last year cannot be counted as a comparator – it was hopefully a one-off!). Taken together, the first two issues are perhaps the most sensitive. Is it truly the case, as some educational commentators have asserted, that UK universities are keener on giving precious places to overseas rather than home students because they bring more money? Substantiating such a claim would require a great deal of granular course-by-course, university-by-university analysis. More broadly, it does suggest that, for whatever reason – lack of reliable digital infrastructure in overseas countries, unwillingness of overseas students to miss out on the physical experience of studying in the UK, the limited appeal that online lecture consumption has so far succeeded in achieving – universities are still far from being able to deliver a satisfactory online learning experience. This is reinforced by the lukewarm reception with which announcements that some teaching will remain online has been greeted. It overlooks the fact that if some UK students are admitted to British universities this autumn without the level of competence required to cope with first year work, online foundation / revision courses could offer them their best chance of getting up to scratch.

Publishers have a role to play here, as well as academics. It has long been recognised that technology could be put to much more creative use to deliver a better teaching and learning experience; at the same time, the development of such technology requires time and money – both in increasingly short supply to both academics and tertiary institutions – as well as a profound understanding of the mechanics, dynamics and legal issues attendant upon successful, compelling dissemination of content. Some enterprising publishers – not necessarily the ones that typically spring to mind as inspirational innovators – are already exploring ways of working with academia to develop exciting new kinds of content for undergraduates and attractive ways of delivering it. Gold Leaf hopes to publish occasional blog posts devoted to this topic.

We’re delighted to be able to continue to bring you news and insights in what promises to be a very interesting academic year. It’s also our twentieth birthday year, so there will be posts that celebrate this, too.

Officially, Gold Leaf was “born” on 1^st September 2001. We’d like to thank all our clients, past and present and those about to work with us, for your support and we look forward to continuing to work with you. Let’s raise a glass to the next twenty years!

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Covid-19, Learning from Libraries, Teaching and Learning

Learning from Libraries: UK academic librarians support their teaching colleagues during Covid-19

June 16, 2021June 16, 2021 Gold Leaf

Introduction

“A man will turn over half a library to make one book.” Dr Samuel Johnson, English lexicographer, 1775

Dr Johnson’s words were more prophetic than he knew. He lived in an age which thought of libraries as storage houses for thousands of codex volumes. And that, of course, is what libraries continued to be until the digital revolution which began in the 1990s with the digitisation of journals, and has become ever more sophisticated, until today some of the resources obtained from academic libraries are multimedia constructs which amalgamate “reusable objects” – or extracts – from many books and journals, the latter also available in several formats. Most university libraries in the UK now have “digital first” policies. The amount of budget devoted to print is small and shrinks annually.

The librarians who take care of these complex resources are themselves not simply guardians, but also skilled disseminators, negotiators and teachers – some have formal teaching qualifications and “team teach” with academics in the classroom, primarily to demonstrate the resources available and how they should be used.

Covid strikes

Covid 19 struck the UK in early spring 2020. Most universities allowed restricted access to the library and other buildings on campus at first; eventually the government ordered them to close completely. Given all the effort and expense that had gone into building digital collections over the last twenty years and the rise and rise of remote access and distance learning, it might be thought that moving lectures and research online and relying mostly on digital resources would cause few problems. Was this indeed the case?

Gold Leaf contacted senior librarians at four UK universities to find out. Two – we have called them Sonia and Rosemary – work at traditional ‘Russell Group’ universities; and two – Frances and Heather – at post-1992 universities (or former polytechnics).

Academic (non)familiarity with digital resources

The first thing they noted was that most academics were not nearly as familiar with digital resources and how to deploy them as had been believed. Academics were nervous. They wanted “reassurance” from librarians. (Frances). “They did not know how to access resources off-campus.” (Heather). “Very few had experience of delivering online or conducting seminars online.” (Sonia). “Many needed to upskill on the use of the video recording software that had previously only been used within on-campus teaching rooms.” (Rosemary).

Librarians to the rescue

Librarians already knew that academic proficiency in accessing digital resources and using Learning Management Systems [LMSs] was uneven, but they were surprised by how many academics turned out to be absolute beginners. “One of our Library teams, Learning Technologies, runs most of our Institutional support for our learning platform, Moodle, and they were heavily involved with training and support.” (Rosemary). “They were all asked to record their lectures in advance (to offset connectivity and access issues) and there was immediately an obvious need for a captioning service, which wasn’t widely available across the university at that time … the library teams supporting lecture capture and captioning required additional resource and an internal bulletin board to help facilitate moving [library] staff resource around to where it was most needed.” (Sonia) “We spent a lot of time creating and recording asynchronous sessions/presentations for staff to then add to modules on NOW [the LMS] for the students. For many courses, recorded material replaced some of the ‘traditional’ sessions we would have delivered face to face; we still did a lot of sessions ‘live’ on Teams, especially inductions for new students, but for the more detailed sessions there would often be a recording for the students to watch, followed up by ‘live’ Q&A sessions.” (Heather)

Resource management and acquisition

As important as helping academics to become competent in online delivery was for librarians to ensure that the resources they needed were available. It was quickly discovered how many core texts were not available in e-format. In the UK, librarians were massively aided by the Jisc free e-textbook programme, to which most of the big academic publishers contributed at the start of the first lockdown. However, this was discontinued by the start of the academic year 2020-2021, after which some e-textbooks proved unaffordable – the charges some publishers made for simultaneous user access sparked protests from librarians across the UK. Certain libraries, predominantly those serving Russell Group universities, persevered with their policies of not buying textbooks, which triggered renewed interest in Open Access Resources [OERs], especially open textbooks. Libraries organised a range of coping strategies to deal with these problems, including themselves digitising as much content as was allowed under the terms of the Copyright Licensing Agency [CLA] licence; making greater use of Inter-Library Loan [ILL]; and setting up click-and-collect services to enable access to print books from the library.

What helped academics most

We asked Sonia, Heather, Frances and Rosemary to name between three and five things they did that really helped academics during this period. Aids mentioned by most of them included reviewing resource lists and obtaining as much of the content as possible in e-format; setting up a scanning service; encouraging academics to think early about the support they would need in the next academic year; and making the case for extra funding to cover all these new initiatives. Others were more individual: “We have started to see academics (especially in HSS) start to realise the benefits of Open Access. They have worked with the library to get a better idea of what is open to them and how to access it. And these are subject areas that have been pathologically against OA up to now.” (Frances). “Helping academics who had themselves paid for access but then had no idea how to make it discoverable or how to handle authentication.” (Heather) “Working in partnership with one of our book suppliers, we set up a service for postgraduate students and academic staff, where we ordered print books to be delivered directly to peoples’ homes. When we were able to re-open the library, we replaced this with a postal loans (and free returns) service.” (Sonia) “From Week 1 we set up an online temporary Webpage Support Hub, one each for Academics and Students, with FAQs and direct links to the library teams best placed to help.” (Rosemary)

What kinds of help do academics most need?

Asked what help academics still need as restrictions are only gradually being relaxed more than one year after the first lockdown, Frances says they still have a long way to go before they understand properly the business models and pricing principles operated by publishers. Heather says they still need help with resource list management and how to create their own online content. Sonia says she and her colleagues will work hard to introduce them to more Open Access materials. Rosemary says that long-term strategic teaching plans need to be put in place, because “it seems likely that off-campus study will be with us to stay – in some [subject] areas for the longer term – and that this will never fully revert.”

Librarians’ standing rises

However else the Covid 19 years of 2020 and 2021 are viewed by historians of academia in years to come, one thing is surely clear: that academic librarians swiftly stepped up to the plate and made possible the continued undergraduate education of countless students, by supporting new kinds of teaching with their resourcefulness and know-how. Nor has this gone unnoticed by their contemporaries:

“I just wanted to say, as the Summer Term/exam season kicks off, what a wonderful job the library continues to do throughout this pandemic. I am extremely impressed with the breadth of support provided, and the sustained efficiency with which the team responds to queries/requests/issues.

“I have been especially pleasantly surprised by the efficiency of the Purchase Request process – it’s perhaps due to the nature of the works I request, but I’m consistently impressed by the speedy and helpful responses. It’s so encouraging to see how readily the library invests in requested resources, and I really appreciate the effort you go to to identify alternative ways to access a resource when purchasing it isn’t possible. Postal loans arrive promptly, and the process of requesting them is wonderfully straightforward – I have used this service a great deal, and my research would have suffered without it. My sincerest thanks to everyone in all corners of the team for your hard work and support 😊.” [Academic based at Sonia’s (Russell Group) university]

Dr Johnson would have been astonished.

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

This article was first published in German language on 26 May 2021 in “Digital Publishing Report, Sonderheft Bibliotheken” as well as on 7 June 2021 in “Digital Publishing Report, Sonderheft E-Learning“.

Mental Health, Students, Universities

Supporting student mental health at Nottingham Trent University

April 27, 2021 Gold Leaf

Paul Dodsley and Leah Wareham together form the hub of the student support service at Nottingham Trent University, where 30,000 students are studying at any one time. Paul describes the service as “prevention-led” – its aim is to take hold of opportunities to support students before they slip into difficulties, rather than afterwards. It has been running for about fifteen years and addresses a range of issues – sexual health, drug and alcohol, nutrition – but mental health awareness takes up approximately 70% of Paul’s time and all of Leah’s.

How can two people make a difference to such a large body of students? Paul and Leah have been extremely innovative in their approach and established an impressive variety of ways to enable them to punch far above their weight. Firstly, the service partners with specialist organisations to make its resources go further – the NHS, for example, and Student Minds. Some of these partner organisations themselves deliver services on the campus. Secondly, training is a big part of what Paul and Leah do. They train academics to recognise signs of distress in students and how to help; they train the student Mental Health Champions – other students who help in a myriad of ways – and offer Student Minds – Look Out For your Mates workshops to all students, which awards students with a nationally recognised certificate and, it is hoped, gives them essential life skills.

Leah’s specific role is to focus on communication and innovative ways of delivering the message about the types of support available. She says she tries to be as creative as possible. At the start of the first lockdown she posted “top tips” for preserving a healthy mental outlook on the Student Support Instagram. From these have progressed Instagram “takeovers” which talk about mental health and how the service can help; and also adaptation of formerly in-person activities to allow them to take place online, such as Time to Talk – a big virtual event which included input from many of the partner services involved. She has also organised virtual events of all kinds. Some are designed to work as occupational therapy – tie-dye tutorials on Instagram, for example, and cookery videos; life-drawing classes and yoga.

Leah (along with Zoe Mallett from the NTSU) is responsible for recruiting and training the Champions. There were only two when she joined the university staff less than three years ago, having just graduated in Photography; now around 400 have signed up. She says that the peer support they provide is invaluable: “It is really effective for students to get support from other students.” Some of the ways in which they deliver are “quite funky”. Many of them are very engaged and themselves think of all sorts of ways of contributing – for example, by creating podcasts. Some are gaining work experience. Together with Paul and Leah, their aim is to improve attitude to self-care: Paul mentioned each person having “a kitbag of support”. All the work they do is completely voluntary – though Paul says their commitment is so great that he would like to be able to find a way to pay them.

Asked what kinds of advice and support students need, and whether he feels they are more dependent than students used to be in the past, Paul is supportive of the present student generation. He says the level of support that is now available is brilliant when compared with, say, twenty years ago, when he was a student at NTU. University attendance has always brought its own challenges, even before the various lockdowns. To these have now been added more uncertainty regarding jobs for graduates and what will happen after they graduate. He believes that one of the key contributions of the service is to enable students to leave the university better equipped to deal with whatever life throws at them next.

The impact of the pandemic and consequent lockdowns has been significant. “Each lockdown has put an increased burden on mental health,” Paul says. “It’s difficult to know whether it’s worse for the first years, who have never known ‘normal’ university life, or for the second and third years, who have experienced what it was like and therefore know what they are missing, for some or all the remaining time they have left here.” Students are not used to isolation. In non-lockdown circumstances, they meet regularly and this gives them a sense of belonging, of being part of a community. Many students have welcomed the online support now on offer. Paul says he recently read a comment in a study issues by the Mental Health Foundation about the present situation which struck him as particularly apposite: “We’re all in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat.” The message he and Leah want to get across is, “If you’re struggling, that’s OK and perfectly understandable, but don’t suffer in silence.”

Asked what has made her most proud, Leah says it is the work that the champions have done. “They get the student voice across, especially now they have started becoming more involved in online activity through social media and our events that run peer-to-peer sessions online. The work they do is amazing and they keep up with it – it doesn’t dwindle over time.”

Asked how he sees the future, Paul says he thinks the service will keep on building up its identity and raising awareness of “what we do”. He would like to be able to focus more on promoting positive health and mental self-care. “And of course, we need more staff.” That is perhaps undeniable; but it’s also undeniably true that what Paul and Leah have achieved is also “amazing”.

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Mental Health, Students

Mental health of international undergraduates in a time of global crisis

February 23, 2021 Gold Leaf

As part of our mini-series about undergraduate mental health, we tried to find out more about the specific issues international students face at this time of global crisis, and which strategies universities and students themselves are deploying to address them.

First, to provide some clarity: the term “mental health” is frequently used ambiguously, but for the purpose of this and all following blog posts, we shall work with the definition provided by the World Health Organisation [WHO], which states that “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” (More details on this can be found here.) The purpose of our articles is to examine imbalances of this state of well-being; we do not consider mental disorders (which require professional support by a GP, psychotherapist or psychiatrist) to be part of this remit.

We spoke to psychologist P. Weigelt-Lindemann, who provides psychological counselling to students at a medium-sized University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

“I started working at this University last year, shortly after the first lockdown had begun in Germany. Since taking up the post, I have therefore always worked from home, and have conducted all counselling remotely so far. My university is a very young (less than 15 years old) teaching university, teaches most degrees in English and has a focus on Natural Sciences, Technology and Agricultural Sciences. As a result, we have a very international student body and more than 50% of students are not German; they mainly come from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and African countries. It has been interesting to see that at first the pandemic barely featured in my counselling; it is only since the second [much stricter] lockdown that was imposed in December that Covid has created real concern for our students. The main anxieties they raise include homesickness, no prospect of being able to travel back into their home countries any time soon and worry about their families, particularly when their families live in countries where infection numbers have gone out of control.”

Social isolation has been a worry throughout the pandemic, but over the winter it has become a bigger issue. Not only international, but also domestic students are suffering from an increased lack of motivation and find it more difficult to absorb information purely through screens and with very limited possibilities for informal exchange with other students. Initially, students adapted well to this new way of learning because they assumed it would only be temporary, but now they are struggling with a state of fatigue – one year on, there is no real end in sight.

P. Weigelt-Lindemann says: “Our ‘Welcome Centre’ that looks after first year students has done an incredibly good job in providing induction to new students remotely, so interestingly these students are coping relatively well with the remote learning. It is those students who were able to build friendships and relationships before the pandemic broke out, and who are used to learning in lecture halls and seminar rooms, who are struggling much more.
“Having said that, international first year students face the added difficulty of cultural assimilation. With everything closed, – not only the university buildings, but also shops, restaurants, cultural venues etc. – these students have only seen their student halls since having arrived in this country, and it is incredibly difficult for them to get to know the country they have moved to and to settle into this new culture. At the same time, there is no prospect of going back home in the near future, so they find themselves in a state of limbo between two cultures, which makes it very hard for them.”

P. Weigelt-Lindemann says the University has experienced a sharp increase in demand for counselling. It has also been noticeable that the pressures on students have increased. Whilst fees are less of an issue in Germany than they are elsewhere (there are no tuition fees at German universities for anyone taking a first degree, though international students have to provide solid proof of financial resources to obtain a student visa), most part-time job opportunities for students – who typically work in bars, restaurants or in the events industry to cover their costs of living – have vanished, and they are more dependent on their families or government support than before. This leads to an increased pressure to be successful in a more challenging learning environment.

The concept of “Emerging Adulthood” as a new phase of development for the period from the late teens through the twenties was first introduced by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett in 2004 and describes the phenomenon of a distinct phase in people’s lives which they spend in self-focused exploration and trying out different possibilities in their careers and relationships, while society sees them as adults who are expected to have entered adulthood and taken decisions accordingly.

P. Weigelt-Lindemann witnesses this discrepancy when engaging in counselling sessions with students. The difficulties that must be negotiated by “emerging adults” are exacerbated by the current situation. “The students are not ready to be adults yet, they need a lot more support in finding their way than previous generations did, but the current situation doesn’t allow them to rely on this support network. This is very difficult for many of them, who are not used to organising their lives for themselves, and that has an effect on their mental health. The university support network has to understand this and the services need to take into account that these students need a lot more (often basic) support than the university is used to providing.”

However, as P. Weigelt-Lindemann points out, the universities can offer a lot to support these students, who should not feel ashamed of asking for help. “Many students think they are the only ones who struggle, but it helps them to find out that their worries and struggles are shared by many and that there is help at hand.”

The university’s counselling service is a good starting point for help, and in many places the Student Unions also provide Mental Health support of excellent quality.

[written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Mental Health, Students

The mental well-being of our students

February 8, 2021 Gold Leaf

Whilst at Gold Leaf we believe it is alarmist – and not at all helpful – to call the present generation of students “lost” because of the impact of the pandemic and various lockdowns on their education – in our experience most young people are astonishingly brave and resilient – it has to be acknowledged that everyone who has enjoyed working for a degree in happier times must sympathise with their plight. Even though many universities around the world have done sterling work in supporting students as much as possible with online learning and blended learning and librarians have both rapidly increased their electronic holdings and made sure that academics and students are well-versed in using them, it cannot be denied that students are missing out on many of the things that make university special: for example, fieldwork expeditions and collaborative lab-work; trips to the theatre, concerts and art galleries and the other rich cultural experiences usually available to undergraduates; even simply hanging out with their peers. On top of this, students may be worried that degrees awarded under today’s restricted studying conditions may be “worth less” than “normal” and that even if the qualifications are recognised, there will be few jobs waiting for those who have qualified.

It is therefore not surprising that concern for students’ mental well-being has increased substantially throughout the past year. A significant amount of research has now been undertaken on this issue. One study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that thoughts of suicide among undergraduates encouraged by 8 – 10% in just three months. A survey conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute found that students now report considerably lower levels of personal well-being than the population as a whole. Dartmouth College, in the USA, detected spikes in student depression and anxiety as early as March 2020, when students were first encouraged to leave the campus and conduct most of their learning online. In January, French students organised a series of nationwide protests to draw attention to rising mental health problems caused by the pandemic. Special mental health counsellors appointed at the University of Lyon say they have been overwhelmed by the demands placed on their services. Two undergraduates at this university have already taken their own lives this year. An article in The Lancet points out that not much is known about the effects of large-scale pandemics on the health of children and adolescents[1]. As well as having a profound impact on their education, social distancing may exacerbate the risk of other threats to young people, such as physical, mental or sexual abuse. If their parents lose their jobs, this also undermines their sense of security.

Last year UNESCO started its Minding our Minds campaign. Eric Falt, Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, wrote: “It will take all of our collective effort and focus to ensure that students are getting the care they need to succeed.” To highlight the importance of the impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown on the mental health of marginalized communities, UNESCO New Delhi has created five awareness posters, which are available in four languages English, Hindi, Sinhala and Tamil.

Clearly undergraduate mental health is vitally important to everyone: today’s undergraduates will be the scientists, politicians, artists and writers of the future. Over the next few weeks, we are therefore planning to dig a little deeper into how some universities are supporting the mental health of their undergraduate communities. If, having read this post, you would like to contribute or comment, we shall be delighted to hear from you.

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

[1] Mental health effects of school closures during COVID-19 – The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health

General, Learning from Libraries, Libraries

Librarians: the quiet and unsung professionals battling Covid every day

December 17, 2020 Gold Leaf

We have heard a great deal about front line workers this year – nurses and doctors and all those working for the NHS and its counterpart national and medical organisations throughout the world; teachers; members of the armed forces; delivery men; and those who toil at jobs in retail when they’re allowed to go to work and put a brave face on it every time there’s another lockdown and they have to stay at home and forego some or all of their wages and contend with the ever-present threat of redundancy. Like everyone, we are full of awe and respect for all of them; but there are people who are not working in the front line who have also been performing incredible feats of industry, endurance and imagination to secure benefits for others throughout this strange and exhausting year.

Top of our list at Gold Leaf are academic librarians. We are familiar with their activities because we work with them all the time; and their achievements this year have been truly astonishing. Within a week – and sometimes within 48 hours – of the first lockdown in their respective countries, academic librarians the world over swung into action. They arranged for students, lecturers and researchers to access online resources remotely; they arranged click-and-collect and scanning services for those reliant on print; they opened up space for research and study in the library as soon as they were able for those who were disadvantaged by having to work from home.

This might all sound quite routine: surely academic librarians have been moving to online resource provision for the best part of twenty years, and with ever-escalating rapidity during the last decade? It may be true that this is the case; but it doesn’t detract from what they have had to accomplish in the past nine or ten months.

In the first place, the Covid restrictions have perforce alerted them to the proficiency – or otherwise – of library users when discovering, accessing and using online products. This includes library users at all levels, from senior academics and researchers to first year students. Librarians have discovered that certain very eminent academics, including those who have been extolling the virtues of digital publications for years, have had very little direct experience of using them. As for students – many librarians smile at the use of the term “digital natives”. It seems that people of all generations vary massively in their online capabilities – one librarian even said that some of her younger librarian colleagues did not know how to use all their library’s digital holdings; but in the main it is the librarians who have been teaching everyone else.

Instruction from librarians to other university colleagues has not been limited to advice on how to access and use digital products; a more time-consuming and far-reaching task they have shouldered is to help academics design online lectures and seminars. Last spring it quickly became clear that taking a routine face-to-face lecture online as it stands does not work, particularly in Arts and Humanities subjects, where many lectures are scheduled to last for more than an hour. Librarians have been coaching academics in how to combine technologies – video streaming with ordinary Zoom and Powerpoint, for example – to make online lectures more interesting; and finding ways of covering topics “shorter but with a deeper dive” to accommodate digital attention spans. Some initiatives have been so successful that at universities where some students in a cohort have been invited to a face-to-face meeting while the rest of the cohort joins it online, many have preferred to ask for the online option.

The digital products themselves have also required attention. Despite the ever-increasing, ever-accelerating demand for digital resources – many universities now have an “e-first” policy, some even and “e-only” one – catering for remote resource provision has highlighted the fact that many resources are still not available in e-format, particularly textbooks; therefore, librarians have had to work hard to find viable alternatives. This may include investigation into open textbooks, which are increasingly becoming of interest to both academics and librarians. Publisher-provided e-textbooks sometimes present a further challenge once they have been located: the business models employed do not always work for library budgets, so librarians may not be able to purchase all they would like to; again, the only option is to spend time looking for alternatives.

Despite all these obstacles, difficulties and challenges, as they reach the end of this year academic librarians everywhere have earned massive gratitude from the communities they support by solving every problem that has been thrown at them, usually with great tolerance, humour and ingenuity. In 2020 academia has suffered many blows and setbacks, but one hugely positive outcome of the Covid pandemic is that having to address it on behalf of their patrons has raised the profile of librarians. The value of the work they do has now been properly acknowledged, in many instances for the first time. Librarians of the world, we salute you!

We wish all the readers of this blog a very happy Christmas and a happy, healthy and successful New Year. We have been massively grateful for all your interest and support during this strange and difficult year and look forward very much to engaging with you again in 2021, when hopefully the future will look a little brighter for all of us.

Linda, Annika and James

Case Studies, Sustainability, Trends in Publishing

A holistic approach to sustainability – Oekom Verlag

December 4, 2020December 4, 2020 Gold Leaf

Oekom is the German “publishing house for Ecological Communication”; it was founded in 1989 and has made the topics of ecology and sustainability its focus ever since. Originally it published the journal “politische ökologie” (“political ecology”) and has built on this to become a publisher of 12 journals and approx. 70 other publications annually. The company defines itself as a “Social Entrepreneur” and employee participation, flexible working and staff wellbeing have been at the centre of its philosophy from the outset. Ecology has always been an important factor in the day-to-day running of the company; recycled paper has always been used for office communication; and for many years only food from sustainable sources has been served to staff and visitors. Oekom exclusively uses sustainable products from specialised suppliers. Anke Oxenfarth, Head of Sustainability and editor in chief for “politische ökologie” says: “If you work for Oekom, sustainability is surrounding you all the time: from the ink in pens and toilet paper to the electricity used in offices and for servers; everything is sourced sustainably. When we travel for business, we only travel by rail, even for distances over 500 km. All new members of staff have a sustainability induction when they start working for us, so the approach is completely integral to all company policies.”

Despite this philosophy, Oekom soon recognised that a more strategic approach to sustainability was needed to make improvements to products and the industry as a whole. Therefore in 2007 a mission statement was created to encapsulate the sustainability approach. Since 2008, there has been a particular focus reducing CO2 emissions by the new established Sustainability Officer. Oekom publications have always been printed on recycled paper (Blue Angel/FSC) where possible and today the vast majority of paper used has sustainability certification; and in 2016 the company started to abandon all shrink wrap from its product range. “We had anticipated a big pushback from distributors, but it was actually found to be very workable and now, customers complain if they receive a shrink-wrapped book (that was produced before 2016 or if a bookseller shrink wraps one of our books at their own account),” says Anke Oxenfarth. In 2011, Oekom made another big push towards its sustainability goals with the creation of a dedicated Executive Department of Sustainability (which has been led by Anke Oxenfarth ever since) and by launching the Green Publishing Initiative.

The idea for a more systematic initiative to encourage sustainability within the publishing industry grew in 2009 and 2010, when it started to become a topic with other industry stakeholders as well. However, funding for this was needed, so Oekom Verlag took the lead in 2011 and stared a “green publishing” project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, in cooperation with research bodies in Berlin (IÖW) and Heidelberg (ifeu) – they provided the scientific background – and the Frankfurt Book Fair, with Oekom being responsible for communication on the subject within the industry.

The first part of the project ran from 2011-2013 and focused on the development of industry-wide standards. Under the title “Sustainable Publishing – New Environmental Standards for the Publishing Industry”, the team held workshops for stakeholders from across the industry and developed a set of criteria backed by environmental research. Not all of the suggested criteria were initially accepted, and work still needs to be done around some of them, for example a commitment to ensure products are free from biogenetics.

After the criteria had been agreed, the second step was to develop a certification and approval process. This project had the title “Development of an eco-label Blue Angel for eco-friendly printed products” and its outcome was the “Blue Angel RAL-UZ 195” (Blue Angel) for printed matters certificate, which was approved and developed as an industry standard in 2015. This certificate encompasses the entire production cycle and ensures not only that paper and packaging are sustainable, but also the printing process, including the sourcing of inks and energy suppliers.

Currently, the certification does not include Sales and Distribution channels. Anke Oxenfarth says this is “a real shame, but it would have been too big a project to establish. You would open a can of worms if you were to try and formalise this. We at Oekom support sustainable distribution channels as far as we can, and a lot of work has to happen within the industry as a whole to improve a global, sustainable distribution chain.
“Sustainability has become a ‘buzz word’ in this industry and many publishers have started looking at it, but many are only engaging with individual projects that are not embedded in an overall strategy. If more publishers adopted a holistic approach to sustainability, such as we do ourselves and as some – but only a few – others do, it would make the discussion around this topic a whole lot more meaningful.”

More information about the Initiative can be found (in German) under www.greenpublishing.de; some documentation is available in English from here: Green Publishing – Downloads

[written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Learning from Libraries, Libraries, Universities

Learning from Libraries – an interview with Roxanne Missingham

November 19, 2020 Gold Leaf

Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian and the Australian National University (ANU) describes what it means to her to be a librarian

Tell us a bit about your career. Did you always want to be a librarian? Where was your first job? Where did you get your library qualification?

My mother says that I wanted to be a librarian when I was in primary school! My first degree at university was a Bachelor of Science. I studied at ANU: lots of Maths and Psychology, with a minor in English.

There weren’t many jobs for women in science and so I did a postgraduate qualification in librarianship at what is now the University of Canberra. I was inspired by such amazingly dedicated lecturers as Maxine Rochester and John Balnaves and was extremely fortunately to be recruited to what was essentially a graduate trainee program at the National Library of Australia.

I loved my colleagues, helping to build the library collection and the ethos of making a national difference through libraries. The diversity of work is fabulous – as are the regular challenges and opportunities.

Tell us about your present job. What do you like most about it? And least?

I have been at the Australian National Library as University Librarian for almost 9 years. It is my first job in the higher education sector. When I was interviewed (there were 9 on the panel!) my key points, as I recall, were a passion for inspiring excellence through student experience and an ability to deal with complex clients. I had been Parliamentary Librarian for 7 years. The interviewing panel thought there might be some similarities between serving members of parliament and serving academics.

At the university my portfolio includes libraries, archives, digital scholarship, the ANU Press and digital literacy. The team is amazing: we work with everyone in the university in some way. My passion is connecting people to knowledge and pretty much all aspects of this are included in the work of the Division.

I love working with my colleagues on new ways to open up access to knowledge and ideas.

Now for the confession, I would love to do less paperwork and use more of that time to work with the team!

Tell us a bit more about ANU Press, why it was set up, your own role.

ANU Press was established in 2003 and officially launched in 2004, with the aim of exploring and enabling new modes of scholarly publishing. It was Australia’s first fully open access scholarly press. We have worked through various strategic changes to foster innovation in scholarly publishing, find new ways to engage with authors and students and move beyond the concept of knowledge trapped behind paywalls. We were initially focused on communicating the research of ANU scholars and have now increased the eligibility authors who may publish and steadily added other new dimensions.

I am very fortunate to be head of the division in which the ANU Press sits and to work on the Advisory Committee.

What has the pandemic meant for you? What have been its highs and lows?

Life in 2020 has been an endless parade of calamities. We have had bushfires, campus closures owing to smoke, hailstorms which destroyed library and other roofs and very many cars and then COVID-19.

I think a big high is the fantastic support within our teams for colleagues, assisting and caring for each other in times of stress. The strong team approach across the whole university has been very inspiring.

As we reach the end of the year, perhaps the two lows are having to say farewell to many staff owing to the university’s downsizing; and the fact that having to endure so many disasters in such a short space of time has been wearing on the heart and soul of the community. We have not been able to engage as deeply or personally because of the time we’ve had to spend off campus and the move to digital communication, even though under the circumstances that was, of course, very appropriate.

What is the most challenging thing you’ve had to deal with in your career; and the thing that makes you most proud?

I think the most challenging matter this year has been the separation of so many staff from our team, people whose contribution to the university and division has been terrific over a sustained period. They remain part of our family but have found that financially it was the right time for them to go.

I am extremely proud of the achievements of the team in working together and keeping the heart and soul of the university alive through all the work of the division. We have created new relationships with students and academics to make the university a success in 2020.

If you look into your crystal ball, what do you think will happen to librarianship in Australia (or everywhere if you prefer) in the next 3 – 5 years?

Given the changes taking place in teaching, I think that academic librarianship will focus on contributions to education with a greater sense of partnership, driven partly by the need to foster the digital education of staff and the academic community as a whole. This also brings to the fore the imperative for greater experimentation in digital delivery, discovery and scholarship. The spirit of partnership needs to extend to our work with publishers. I think OA will mature and that new models must be supported that will have disciplinary nuances and deep library involvement.

Library education is up for major debate. The evolution of micro-credentials and new forms of skilling must focus on “snack packs” to upgrade our knowledge and build stronger partnerships with employers.

Finally linking up the GLAM sector to tackle fundamental policy issues – such as copyright – is essential

Would you mind saying a little more about your personal life – children, hobbies, etc.?

Life provides many challenges and the joy of my husband’s and my life are our two grandchildren, who are aged 2 and 7 – princesses with a lot of energy. Not to forget our three grown up children! I am a keen quilter – every time I complete a quilt I swear not to buy more fabric as the stash is overtaking the spare room. My current project is a quilt for the youngest grandchild, which has an image from Totoro of May: Saski, Totoro and the two small animals are appliquéd in the middle. And the garden and chickens are calling too!

[This interview was conducted by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]