Join us for an academic conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair. This conference, which is a part of the Publishing Perspectives Forum, is free and open to all registered Frankfurt Book Fair attendees.

9:30 am Networking Breakfast

The day will begin with a networking breakfast, offering attendees the chance to connect with peers and industry leaders in an informal setting. This is an excellent opportunity to foster new relationships and exchange ideas before the start of the formal sessions.

10:00 am Panel 1: Putting Theory to Practice: The Case of Artificial Intelligence in Scholarly Publishing

AI has been a key topic at every publishing conference since the beginning of 2023 at the latest. Numerous publishers and service providers are experimenting with its application in various areas, whether to reduce costs or increasingly to increase sales. The panel will use examples from differently structured publishing houses to show which solutions industry participants are working on and how they are applying the different, rapidly developing forms of artificial intelligence in practice.

Speakers:

• Moderator: Sven Fund, Managing Director, Reviewer Credits

Sven Fund is the Managing Director of Reviewer Credits, the peer review expert network. Prior jobs include leadership positions at Bertelsmann, SpringerNature, De Gruyter, ResearchGate, and Wiley. He holds a degree in European Studies from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in Political Science from Muenster University. Through his company fullstopp, Sven invests in startups in publishing and beyond. He lectures in Library and Information Science at Humboldt University in Berlin. He frequently speaks at international conferences around the globe.

• Amy Biesel, Beisel Coaching

Amy Beisel has held leadership roles in product strategy, business development, and strategic partnerships during her two decades in scholarly publishing, including at Wiley and Research Square. Amy provides business coaching to publishing services providers through her consultancy Beisel Coaching, with a focus on AI start-ups.

• Niko Pfund, Academic Publisher and President of Oxford University Press, USA

Niko Pfund is the Academic Publisher and President of Oxford University Press, USA.  A past President of the Association of University Presses, he serves or has served on a number of boards and advisory groups, including those of the Digital Public Library of America, the Executive Council of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing division of the American Publishers, the Eurasia Group Foundation, and the literary magazine The Common.

• Nishchay Shah, CTO, Cactus Communications

Nishchay is the Chief Technology Officer and Business Head, AI Products at Cactus Communications. Nishchay heads the AI powered products business at Cactus consisting of products like Paperpal, Preflight, R Discovery and Mind The Graph and oversees technology and innovation across all products and brands at CACTUS. Experienced in managing product development, customer experience, outsourcing, and global tech recruitment, Nishchay manages a large department with over 300 experts working in product management and software development, digital innovation, and machine learning. Nishchay focuses on creating, translating, and mobilizing big-picture visions downstream. Nishchay has over 18 years of experience in product development and technology and strives to stay on the bleeding edge of innovation.

11:00 am Panel 2: When more means less? The unanticipated consequences of Scholcomm trends on library resourcing

Ever feel like you are the proverbial camel–just waiting for the straw that’s going to break your back? As complexity around scholarly communications increases, trends around content access from open research to artificial intelligence clash with practical realities around library staffing, budgets, and time. One real world result may be fewer staff responsible for “keeping the lights on” with routine work processes, as dedicated Open or AI point persons are peeled off for more “glamorous” work. Another may be a seemingly endless allocation of headcount for managing open access agreements/charges or repository deposits to comply with local data mandates–what will happen when those folks retire? Can technology somehow step in to empower fewer people to do more with flat or dwindling resources? Could shared burdens around collections, pooled resources, or shared job functions be another answer? How can publishers and service providers help save the breaking backs of their library partners (as well as researchers and students) enabling them to work smarter, not harder? Join our session for a lively debate around these ever changing tides.

Speakers:

• Moderator: Jude Perera, Associate Director, Communication/Engagement, Global Strategic Partnerships Wiley

Jude is the Associate Director for Global Partnerships at Wiley, and is based in Berlin, Germany. With over nine years of experience in marketing strategy and policy, he has successfully led various strategic projects across the publishing, health sciences, and technology sectors. Jude has developed and managed several successful content programs, including a well-received podcast on research. He is actively engaged in key industry topics such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Open Access (OA), Peer Review, Accessibility, as well as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Jude is also an active member of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) as well as other industry bodies, where he contributes to advancing industry themes and practices.

• Heather Staines, Senior Consultant, Delta Think

Heather Staines is Senior Consultant at Delta Think and Director of Community Engagement for the OA Data Analytics Tool. Her prior roles include Head of Partnerships for the MIT Knowledge Futures Group, Director of Business Development at Hypothesis, as well as positions at Proquest, SIPX (formerly the Stanford Intellectual Property Exchange), Springer SBM, and Greenwood Publishing Group/Praeger Publishers. She is a frequent speaker and participant at industry events including the Charleston Library Conference, Council of Science Editors, ISMTE, and the International STM Association. She is President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing and a Board Member for NASIG. She has a Ph.D. in Military and Diplomatic History from Yale University.

• Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Professor and Coordinator for Research Professional Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Lisa Hinchliffe is Professor and Coordinator for Research Professional Development in the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the University’s School of Information Sciences, European Union Center, and Center for Global Studies. Lisa was the 2010-2011 President of the Association of College and Research Libraries, served as co-Secretary General of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance, and is currently the Chair of the ORCID Board. She writes for “The Scholarly Kitchen” and is highly sought after as a speaker and consultant. For more info: https://lisahinchliffe.com.

• Ádám Dér, Head, Scientific Information Provision, Max Planck Digital Library

Ádám Dér is Head of Scientific Information Provision at the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), serving researchers at the more than 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society across Germany. In this role, he acts as lead negotiator and collections strategist, prioritizing publisher negotiations to advance the open access transition in scholarly publishing. He also represents the Max Planck Society in a broad range of national and international strategic activities, including Germany’s nationwide DEAL negotiations, in the governing council of SCOAP3, and in the Board of the OA Switchboard. He is an expert advisor in the ESAC Initiative on data analytics, OA workflows and transformative agreements and contributes to a variety of international industry boards and initiatives. Prior to his role at MPDL, he served as Head of Development of the Hungarian National Consortium (EISZ).