Investigating the REF 2014 as another means of understanding academic books - Focus on English and History. The Centre for the Comparative History of Print (Centre CHoP) present the following event as part of the Sadler Series, Cultures of the Book. Date: 12-10-2015 Simon Tanner, from King's College London (@SimonTanner), is a Co-Investigator on the AHRC/British Library project, 'The Academic Book of the Future' and his paper uses REF 2014 data to consider the state of the academic monograph. Looking both at the proportion of books submitted across the subject panels and then in depth at English and History, Tanner reflects on the role the monograph plays in the economy of scholarly communication and discusses the challenges the monograph will face in the future.

1. Simon Tanner
King’s College London
@SimonTanner
@AcBookFuture
#AcBookFuture
Investigating the REF 2014 as another means
of understanding academic books:
Focus on English and History

2. Project team:
 Samantha Rayner, Nick Canty & Rebecca Lyons (UCL),
 Simon Tanner & Marilyn Deegan (KCL)
 Michael Jubb as key consultant
 Project Board Chair: Kathryn Sutherland, Oxford
University
Context of Project
#AcBookFuture
Project Board
Core Management
Group
Stakeholders
Partners
Community Coalition
AHRC/BL Steering
Group

3. Starting Point
#AcBookFuture
To examine the roles and purposes of academic books to serve
scholarship and wider learning
To examine and analyse the dynamics of academic book
production, curation, and use
To investigate and assess the opportunities and challenges
associated with technological developments
( v i a 2 p h a s e s o f a c t i v i t y )
https://academicbookfuture.wordpress.com/
“What do scholars want?” We all want our cultural record to be comprehensive,
stable, and accessible. And we all want to be able to augment that record with
our own contributions.
Jerome McGann, Sustainability: the Elephant in the Room.
Paper for the 2010 Conference, Digital Humanities Scholarship: The Shape of Things to Come.

4. Investigating the
REF2014
#AcBookFuture
REF 2014 submissions provides a rich data set as a means of
learning more about the academic books created and deemed
worthy of submission in the last REF cycle (2009-2014).
Focus = Main Panel D for Arts and Humanities.
Within this Panel the data can be investigated by Unit of
Assessment Subject Area and by Research Output Type.
Likely outcomes:
Allow an identification of who are the publishers of the book
submissions
Other possibilities:- author gender, book format/length etc,
books per submitting institution, open access books
Results may stimulate discourse
Caveats abound...

5. REF 2014: Proportion of Output Type by Subject Area Panel
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015

6. REF 2014: Comparing Modern Languages, English & History
Modern Languages
& Linguistics
English Language
& Literature
History
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015

7. REF 2014: Comparing Subjects with Varied Output Types
Communication, Cultural
& Media Studies,
Library &
Information
Management
Music,
Drama,
Dance &
Performing Arts
Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015

8. REF 2014: Looking at Unit of Assessment 30: History
 1657 Books in the following output types
 Authored Books (1320),
 Edited Books (290) and
 Scholarly Editions (47)
 295 unique Publishers found
 Top 10 most used Publishers
= 930 books or 56%
 258 Publishers (87%) had 5 or fewer
books submitted
 171 Publishers (57%) had one book
submitted – mostly non-UK
 761 books submitted (46%) were from
a University Press.
 Outside the top 5 these were
mostly non-UK publishers.
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015
Publishers with >10 books submitted
213 Oxford University Press
162 Cambridge University Press
143 Palgrave Macmillan
98 Manchester University Press
74 Ashgate
70 Routledge
52 Boydell & Brewer
51 Yale University Press
40 Brill Academic Publishers
27 Continuum International Publishing
27 Edinburgh University Press
21 I B Tauris
21 Pickering & Chatto
20 Harvard University Press
19 Bloomsbury Publishing
16 Penguin
14 Allen Lane
14 British Academy/Oxford University Press
14 Liverpool University Press
14 University of Wales Press
12 University of Chicago Press
11 Reaktion Books

9. REF 2014: Looking at Unit of Assessment 29:
English Language and Literature
 2220 Books in the following output types
 Authored Books (1684),
 Edited Books (397) and
 Scholarly Editions (139)
 385 unique Publishers found
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015
29: English Language & literature:
A: Authored Books Publishers
The shape of the data is a Long Tail

10. REF 2014: Looking at Unit of Assessment 29:
English Language and Literature
A: Authored Books = 313 Publishers
 There are 23 Publishers with
more than 10 books submitted
 Top 10 most used Publishers
= 835 books or ~49%
 267 Publishers had 5 or fewer
books submitted
 178 Publishers had one book
submitted
 59 Publishers are a University Press.
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015
158 Palgrave Macmillan
130 Oxford University Press
124 Cambridge University Press
81 Edinburgh University Press
76 Routledge
64 Ashgate
60 Bloomsbury Publishing
56 Continuum
47 Manchester University Press
39 Faber & Faber
26 Liverpool University Press
25 Jonathan Cape
25 Picador
24 Salt Publishing
23 Carcanet Press
21 Penguin Books
18 Peter Lang
18 Seren
18 University of Wales Press
16 Wiley Blackwell
13 Shearsman Books
12 Bloodaxe Books
11 Pickering & Chatto

11. REF 2014: Looking at Unit of Assessment 29:
English Language and Literature
B: Edited Books = 97 Publishers
 There are 8 Publishers with
10 or more books submitted
 Top 10 most used Publishers
= 234 books or ~59%
 81 Publishers listed had 5 or fewer
books submitted
 53 Publishers had one book
submitted
 22 Publishers are a University Press.
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015
49 Palgrave Macmillan
43 Cambridge University Press
39 Oxford University Press
23 Manchester University Press
21 Ashgate
19 Pickering & Chatto
14 Routledge
10 Continuum

12. REF 2014: Looking at Unit of Assessment 29:
English Language and Literature
R: Scholarly Editions = 51 Publishers
 There are 3 Publishers with
more than 10 books submitted
 Top 10 most used Publishers
= 83 books or ~63%
 48 Publishers had 5 or fewer
books submitted
 33 Publishers had one book
submitted
 11 Publisher are a University Press.
Initial draft data – subject to change © Simon Tanner, 2015
25 Oxford University Press
22 Pickering & Chatto
15 Cambridge University Press
4 Brepols
4 Broadview Press
3 Four Courts Press
3 Modern Humanities Research Association
3 Penguin Books

13. Academic Book Week:
Nov 9-16th
#AcBookFuture

14. Get in touch!
@AcBookFuture
The Academic Book of the Future
https://academicbookfuture.wordpress.com/
s.rayner@ucl.ac.uk
simon.tanner@kcl.ac.uk
@SimonTanner
#AcBookFuture