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University of Michigan Press is proud to announce that it has been shortlisted for the 2019 London Book Fair International Excellence Award for Academic and Professional Publishing. Started in 2014 and held in partnership with the UK Publishers Association, the award showcases and celebrates publishing excellence and innovation for international markets outside the UK.

University of Michigan Press will attend the awards ceremony on Tuesday, March 12 alongside two other shortlisted publishers, De Gruyter and Rutgers University Press. The winner will be announced that evening.

“The University of Michigan Press is very pleased and honored to learn that we have been shortlisted for the Academic and Professional Publisher Award. The University of Michigan Press strives for leadership, excellence, and relevance in digital scholarship and aims to reflect the diversity of both the library and publishing communities in our scholarship, products, and services. The shortlist is a fantastic opportunity to share our story with the global book industry and learn from the achievements of our fellow nominees,” said Sales and and Marketing Director Lanell White.

University of Michigan Press has been delivering on its mission to demonstrate relevance, excellence, and diversity in its publishing and digital projects. This January, for example, it launched a pioneering multimedia-enriched ebook collection for libraries (the University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection ) on its own open-source platform, Fulcrum .

In addition, the Press announced several initiatives, including:

• The launch of Fulcrum Services and Partnership Models for fellow publishers, offering values-driven hosting and services ranging from large collections to single titles;
• A major push for accessibility starting with Fall 2019 books with accessible EPUBs and digital publishing platform features meeting the latest WCAG 2 AA Standards (currently WCAG 2.1 AA);
• An expanded platinum (i.e., no author payment) open access program building on relationships with Knowledge Unlatched and the Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) grant program to increase academic and public engagement with long-form humanities scholarship;
• The addition of linked research data options for authors in collaboration with Deep Blue Repository and Research Data Services at the University of Michigan Library.

While at the London Book Fair, University of Michigan Press is also pleased to be able to learn about many issues of importance to its Press and the larger publishing community such as Open Access, Plan S, and global trends in academic research and peer review. The London Book Fair also offers an unique opportunity to network with leaders in scholarly publishing and touch base with colleagues, partners, and vendors of interest.

For media inquires and appointments, please contact: Lanell White, Sales and Marketing Director, lejames@umich.edu.