The H-Net Book Channel

A guest post from Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications.

Guest post by Heather Stauffer, editor-in-chief, Syracuse University Press.

Cheers from fans in the hotel lobby permeated most discussions at the AUPresses conference in Seattle on June 14 and 15, and while it was nice to pretend they were enthusiastic about university press publishing, everyone knew the focus was on the men’s Egyptian soccer team. The energy from hotel guests and armed security seemed to oscillate between: A glimpse of Salah and the team at the World Cup? Wow! And, Roving publishers deep in

A guest post from Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications.

Guest post by Michelle Chen, senior acquisitions editor, University Press of Colorado.

It is almost salmon season in Seattle. Every year, millions of adult salmon return from the ocean to the Puget Sound to seek out the freshwater banks where they were born—a migratory ritual known as the salmon run. After battling their way upstream, these salmon spawn and die, their carcasses enriching the soil of the majestic old growth forests (or, Salmon Forests) of the Pacific Northwest. In turn, such carbon rich forests play a

A monthly newsletter from Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications.

What We’re Reading

Open access has largely been built on article publishing charges (APCs): pay to publish. But this business model increasingly faces challenges. Here are a couple of examples:

SPARC Statement on GAO Report GAO-26-107738: Federal Research Publishing Costs May 2026

The GAO report estimates the cost of paying APCs for researchers with federal grants at $1 billion. SPARC responds: “This report conflates public access with pay-to-publish, treating the current commercial publisher business model as

A guest post from Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications.

Guest post by Leah Valtin-Erwin, Deputy Director, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Before I became the editor of an academic newsletter, I imagined these publications to be self-generating, the requisite content self-evident to an omniscient entity at the top of the organization, someone all-knowing about the goings-on among their constituency. I assumed that someone (read: someone else) knew which material deserved a place in the organizational record and had only to compile it. 

In reality

Why It Matters: Teaching Empathy, Critical Thinking, and Civil Discourse across the Humanities and Social Sciences

Please join us for our fifth annual remote conference sponsored by H-Teach. This is a global conference that will begin on Monday, August 17th at 6 p.m. eastern (EDT).

Dear all,

The brand-new MAP - Mercator cartography museum in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium (sorry, no English website yet), is planning to organise a map exhibition in late 2028, in which visitors will embark on a figurative journey around the world.

Libraries and Information Institutions in the Digital Age (LIDA)

Šibenik, Croatia, 19-21 May 2027

Website: http://lida.ffos.hr<http://lida.ffos.hr/>
Email: lida@unizd.hr<mailto:lida@unizd.hr>

Libraries and Information Institutions in the Digital Age (LIDA) conference addresses the changing and challenging environment for libraries and information systems and services in the digital world. LIDA is an international biennial conference that brings together researchers, educators, students, practitioners, and developers from around the world in a forum for sharing ideas, discussions, and learning

Call For Papers: "Centering the Black Experience in the Civil War Era, Conference" will be held at North Carolina Central University on September 18–19, 2026. It commemorates the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers / 35th U.S.

• The conference focuses on the Civil War as a Black freedom struggle, examining military service, emancipation, labor, community formation, and memory.

• Submissions, due by May 24, 2026, should place Black people at the analytical center of the conflict and its afterlives.

• Themes include the 1st NCCV/35th USCT, Black military service, freedom-making, Black war labor

NOTE EXTENDED DEADLINE: Highest priority is given to applications that are fully complete by March 12, 2026

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (GLC), part of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, invites applications for its 2026-2027 Fellowship Program. The Center seeks to promote a better understanding of all aspects of the institution of slavery from the earliest times to the present. We especially welcome proposals that will utilize the special collections of the Yale University Libraries or other research

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (GLC), part of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, invites applications for its 2026-2027 Fellowship Program. The Center seeks to promote a better understanding of all aspects of the institution of slavery from the earliest times to the present. We especially welcome proposals that will utilize the special collections of the Yale University Libraries or other research collections of the New England area, and explicitly engage issues of slavery, resistance, abolition, and their