News

LUP Journals Publishing Executive appointed as Early Career Editor for Learned Publishing

Megan Ainsworth, Journals Publishing Executive at Liverpool University Press, has been appointed to the role of Early Career Editor for the journal Learned Publishing. 

Learned Publishing is the leading journal for scholarly publishing, published by Wiley on behalf of ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers), an international membership trade body that represents not-for-profit organizations that publish scholarly and professional content. The journal publishes peer reviewed research, reviews, industry updates and opinions on all aspects of scholarly communication and publishing.

As EC-Editor, Megan will work closely with the Editor-in-Chief, Pippa Smart, and The North American Editor, Lettie Conrad. It is envisaged that the EC-Editor will support the Editorial Team to improve the operation, outreach, quality and impact of the journal. Anthony Cond, Managing Director of LUP, and Associate Editor of Learned Publishing, will act as a mentor for the new EC-Editor. 

Pippa Smart, Editor-in-Chief, said ‘I am really excited to be working with Megan and looking forward to discussing new ideas and getting a fresh perspectives on what we can do with the journal’. 

Megan expressed her delight at the appointment, ‘I am so pleased to take on the role of Early Career Editor for Learned Publishing. As the Journals Publishing Executive at LUP, I have benefited from working with some of the best talent in scholarly publishing at the beginning of my career. I am now excited to be working with the esteemed editorial team at LP and to be able to affect what we publish’. 

Anthony Cond added ‘scholarly publishers have always provided early career researchers with an opportunity to showcase their abilities but the industry has been surprisingly less proactive in extending the same forum to early career publishers, as most publishing journal editorial boards and conference panels attest.  Learned Publishing is taking the initiative to engage with those who will shape the future of publishing: Megan will bring new insights and connections to the journal as part of her appointment’.

Read the ALPSP press release here.

Journals, Uncategorized

Town Planning Review 90.2 Featured Article

The editors of Town Planning Review have selected ‘Can Self-Build Housing improve Social Sustainability within Low-Income Groups?’ by Helena Obremski and Claudia Carter as the Featured Article for TPR 90.2.

The paper will be free to access for a limited time here.

When asked to describe the paper and highlight its importance, the authors stated the following:

This paper came about because relatively little research exists on self-build housing projects in the UK and the percentage of new homes provided this way is one of the lowest in Europe, Northern America and Australia. At the same time, prominent topics of debate are how to provide more affordable housing, especially for low-income citizens and socially marginalised individuals, and how to create more sustainable communities and cohesion in urban neighbourhoods. We therefore decided to focus our paper on the current knowledge gap regarding low-income communities, assessing five self-build affordable-housing initiatives in England and Wales, to further investigate and clarify connections between factors influencing social sustainability.

Research on affordable self-build housing has so far mainly focused on environmental sustainability and improving the quality of settlements. A lack of clarity regarding the social sustainability aspects emerged during the assessment of existing international self-build literature. Three past Town Planning Review papers (Crawford et al., 2008; Dempsey, 2009; Hamiduddin, 2015) provided some steer and influenced our research focus and analysis around three core concepts: social capital, social cohesion and participation.

Our research identified ‘feedback loops’ between social cohesion, social capital and participation. In particular, participation was affected by factors such as the communal spaces, the interests of self-build residents and the presence of a management framework from the start of the projects and beyond. Our analysis of interviews with participants and project managers elicited the importance of (continued) engagement in activities within self-build communities and how an effective management framework and a sustained collective shared vision facilitate increased levels of participation and social cohesion, and maintain social capital. However, we also found that the intensive and sometimes prolonged organisational and construction phases of the projects can in some cases negatively affect social cohesion due to clashes in character and priorities, and erode social capital and social cohesion.

Therefore, we concluded that given ‘the right’ physical and social dimensions, self-build housing projects can provide more socially sustainable communities.

The authors also commented:

Helena: “The social dynamics of planning have always interested me, and although social sustainability has gained momentum in recent years, this concept remained somewhat vague. The research provided some unexpected findings and an insightful understanding into the way in which self-build development influences some social aspects of the communities we studied. I hope to see more self-build developments coming forward as I see this as a genuine way to provide more socially sustainable communities, given the right set of factors are in place.”

Claudia: “Having grown up in Germany and seen friends participate in self-build projects of various kinds I always have found it slightly puzzling why it is quite rare in the UK. There are so many different kinds of self-build projects and associated goals and the research for this paper, while very focused and bound in scope, opened my eyes to the range of factors and connections that play a part. With social isolation, continued austerity and a host of environmental and social challenges I believe we will see many more self-build projects and research in the future.”

Journals, News

Subscriptions Management Executive: Job Description and Further Details

 Contents:

  1. About LUP
  2. Job Description
  3. Person Specification
  4. To Apply

 

  1. About LUP

Liverpool University Press (LUP) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Liverpool, and was founded in 1899. The Press has recently expanded rapidly, and now publishes 33 scholarly journals, around 100 new books per annum and a number of digital products across the arts and humanities.  LUP currently employs eighteen full time and one part time staff.

The new role of Subscriptions Management Executive reflects our growing journals portfolio and expanding digital sales, and ambitious plan to take our journals subscriptions and fulfilment in house.  Reporting to the Press’s Head of Journals the role will involve subscriptions data processing and reporting, handling payments and customer service. The job is based in Liverpool on the University of Liverpool campus, with excellent benefits including 30 days holidays (plus bank holidays) and a superb pension scheme.

 

  1. Job Description

The Subscriptions Management Executive will undertake the following duties under guidance from the Head of Journals:

  • Maintain computer system with accurate and up to date records for all publications, including prices
  • Receive and process orders for publications from customers by telephone, post, FTP and email
  • Create and hold records for each customer to allow invoicing, including all invoicing and payment details
  • Process invoices for print and electronic products and subscriptions, manage renewals and reminders
  • Process payments
  • Provide reports
  • Handle claims and customer complaints
  • Provide labels to printer for despatch of print products and submit electronic data to online host to enable access

 

Customer services

Process routine orders

Receive subscription orders via FTP or other electronic means

Processing of telephone orders

Processing customer queries and claims

Credit control (matching cash to invoice, or obtaining missing information)

Payment queries

Handle cancellations and refunds

Liaise with Subscription Agents

Manage database recording address changes

Despatch catch-up copies for new orders, of missing/incomplete orders

 

Renewals and reminder management

Prepare and despatch the subscription renewal invoices and reminders to timetable

Distribute renewal details to Subscription Agents

Direct subscribers and individual subscribers

 

Invoicing

Invoice customers with list price and discount

Prepare and despatch invoices

Invoice in US Dollars, UK Pounds Sterling or Euro

 

Electronic Subscriptions

Add and maintain customer IP addresses and email addresses

 

Feeds to Content Host

Provide email feed/FTP files of specified customer data for past and current subscriptions to enable Content Host to administer IP controlled or username/password access to electronic content

 

Reporting

Provide sales, Marketing, Financial reports when necessary

Subscriptions (general), New Subscriptions, Non-renewed Subscriptions, Comparative Subscription Sales, Subscription Sales by Campaign Code.

 

Marketing Lists

Updating and maintenance of marketing list

 

  1. Person specification

The successful candidate will have:

  • Customer support experience or experience as a client service representative
  • Familiarity with CRM systems and practices
  • Have experience of data inputting to a high standard of accuracy
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills
  • Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage time effectively
  • Attention to detail
  • Strong phone contact handling skills and active listening

 

  1. To apply

Please email a CV and covering letter detailing how you are suited to the role, together with the names of two referees (who will be contacted only in the event of a successful application), to Clare Hooper, Head of Journals, clare.hooper@liv.ac.uk.

Closing date for applications: 28th February

Interview date: 7th March

 

Liverpool University Press is an open and inclusive workplace.  We welcome and respect all backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, sexualities, ages and lifestyle choices.

 

Journals

Hunter Gather Research has been accepted for inclusion in Scopus

The Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB), has advised that Hunter Gatherer Research has been accepted for inclusion in Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature.

The reviewer comments are copied below:

  • The journal consistently includes articles that are scientifically sound and relevant to an international academic or professional audience in this field.
  • The journal has scholarly relevance as evidenced by citations in other journals currently covered by Scopus.
  • In general, the content of the articles is consistent with the scope and aims of the journal.
  • The articles are consistently of high academic quality, consistent with the journal’s stated aims.
  • Although the scope of this journal is narrow, it addresses the need of an important niche audience.

Hunter Gatherer Research is an international, multi-disciplinary quarterly publication that covers all aspects of hunter-gatherer studies, whether focusing on the present, past or future. It encompasses genetics, ecology, evolutionary anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, ethnohistory, linguistics, indigenous rights and applied research.

Browse Hunter Gatherer Research >

Journals

Town Planning Review 89.6 Featured Article

The editors of Town Planning Review have selected ‘Civic-led public space: favourable conditions for the management of community gardens’ by Anne Könst, Rianne van Melik, and Wouter-Jan Verheul.

It will be free to access for a limited time here.

When asked to describe the paper, and highlight its importance the authors stated the following:

In our paper, we investigate five community gardens in the Netherlands, which are all developed and managed by members of the community, in most cases close neighbours. We wanted to find out why and how these citizens became engaged in the (co)production of public space. In our current ‘Big Society’, citizen participation is seen as a favourable development. When citizens manage public space, this potentially alleviates pressure on municipal budgets and leads to increased use. However, there are also potential downsides, such as exclusion of people who feel the garden is not ‘for them’.

Our research has shown that favourable conditions for the management of community gardens alter over time. Setting up a community garden is one thing, but formally managing it on the long run is another. A sense of urgency, visionary and connective leadership, a large external network and government support are essential when starting a community initiative. However, in the management phase, personal interest, ‘fun’, shared responsibilities and a local network become important conditions. Community gardens thus need to be adaptive to respond to changing circumstances as the initiative matures.

Civic-led public space like our investigated community gardens have their pros and cons. In each case, a green space was added to neighbourhoods with limited public space. As such, the gardens served a broader societal purpose and not just personal interests. However, we have also seen that civic leadership makes these initiatives relatively vulnerable. The gardens heavily rely on older and often unemployed or retired volunteers; other volunteers are difficult to recruit. Managing public space is time-consuming and can undermine the primary activities of gardening and socialising. Moreover, there is a tension between being sufficiently ‘closed’ to ensure volunteers feel connected to the gardens and not being ‘open’ enough to other residents in the neighbourhood.

Overall, our research revealed that there is a large variety in the ways community gardens are organised and who is involved. Even when public spaces are managed by citizens, they still often collaborate with many other actors, including local governments, supermarkets, day-care centres, etc. The paper thus highlights that there is no single actor who can best manage public space; local governments, markets and communities are mutually dependent in creating attractive public space, each having their own strengths and weaknesses.

The authors also commented:

Könst: “During the interviews the degree of resilience proved to be an important characteristic of successfully managed community gardens, which is an important base for sustainable urban development.”

Van Melik: “Community gardens are very interesting examples of public spaces in which citizens play a very active and autonomous role. This makes them perfect sites to study the pros and cons of co-producing public space.”

Verheul: “We feel that public-space literature is dominated by the dichotomy of public versus private, where government-led public space is generally preferred over market-led. The debate would profit from a trichotomous perspective in acknowledging that public space is increasingly a co-production of state, market and as our empirical study shows: community. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, are mutually dependent, and should not be considered as a replacement, but as an addition to each other.”