Comments & Commentaries from Members & Stakeholders
"STM plays a vital role in driving the agenda for academic publishers - always adding value to the various debates as a respected authority on the scientific publishing world and able to represent its members at the highest level, whether within the scholarly communication arena or when engaging with politicians and governments."
Beverley Acreman, Taylor & Francis
"The Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers Association and Copyright Clearance Center share a long history of serving the STM Publisher Community. As STM enters its 40th year, it is amazing to reflect on how much has hanged. Technical advances enable publishers to control and fully automate their businesses: test web-based business models set pricing set permissions across all media types - text, video, image, blogs and more - and license this content instantaneously. CCC is proud to work with STM members to seize these opportunities and develop innovative licensing services to meet customer needs. It is an honor to work worked with STM over the past three decades and we look forward to serving alongside your organization for many years to come. Congratulations STM on your 40th anniversary!"
Tracey Armstrong
Chief Executive Officer
Copyright Clearance Center
"STM was started in a different age but the need to work together on issues such as copyright is as strong as ever. Many of us are active in national trade associations but STM is a global business requiring an international trade association with specialised knowledge of our publishing environment and the technology that has enabled us to revolutionize the value we add as publishers.
A classic example of how we can act together for mutual benefit is CrossRef. Through the STM Association a community had got to know each other well enough to grasp the complex issues involved in setting up CrossRef and establishing an effective organisation representing a wide range of publishing interests to achieve a common goal. Even though CrossRef has grown beyond the STM community to cover all scholarly and professional publishing, it would not have happened without STM.
In the first 30 years of STM we were following well established publishing models and in the fourth decade we saw through the change from print on paper to online delivery. It involved a massive investment and adapting a new pricing model but conceptually the product was much the same. The next step will see much greater change as we really begin to use the potential of the new technology.
To understand these changes and develop new sustainable publishing models we shall need to share knowledge and experience and set international standards. This can only be done effectively through STM. Its role in the evolution of publishing will be greater than ever."
Bob Campbell
Wiley-Blackwell
17 August 2009
"STM has successfully positioned itself as the leading international advocate for the scholarly publishing industry. Its voice is taken seriously by librarians, academics and, most importantly, government officials. It is essential that STM continues to build on its influence in government circles."
YS Chi, Vice Chairman
Elsevier
"The STM Association is the Number One body to represent all STM publishers and promote the role of publishing in science, technology, the humanities and medicine. Forty years of leadership and experience demonstrate how successfully it has fulfilled that mission: publishing stands more strongly than ever as the essential foundation of all scholarship. STM is also the place to meet and talk with leading people in our industry, from both the major international publishers and the learned societies. I found the way to get the most out of STM was to get involved, and I'd recommend anyone in STM publishing to do the same. You'll soon be close to the big issues in our business, and know the people who are tackling them. You will be linking your company to what's happening in the wide international STM industry, the opportunities and threats, trends among our customers, movements in government policies, technical advances, and all the other excitements of our distinguished trade. STM is our flag and our forum - striding forward from forty!"
Jerry Cowhig, Managing Director
IOP Publishing
"Through decades of extraordinary change, the STM Association has been a highly effective source of leadership and guidance for our industry and an unfailing advocate for integrity and quality in scientific communications. Its expertise and deep understanding of scholarly publishing have made STM an indispensable ally for publishers in advancing policy and promoting understanding of the contributions we make to the world of science, technology and health. Its stewardship of initiatives like Research4Life have helped extend the reach of our contributions to many thousands of scholars and institutions in the developing world who are now able to put STM information to use in solving major problems of health, environment, and economic development. Congratulations on 40 years of partnership and contribution."
Erik Engstrom
CEO, Elsevier
"In this fast evolving world we value STM as an organisation providing focus, voice and leadership to STM publishing globally. STM offer many benefits but for publishing and the wider community of stakeholders like CLA, STM meands Sustaining The Model."
Kevin Fitzgerald
The Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd
"Considering that academic publishing has been around for centuries, it is astonishing that STM has accomplished so much in only 40 years. The Association has evolved into a professional, representative and effective organization that makes the case for all of us, and the speed at which STM moves in these times of more complex issues is a credit to STM's Secretariat and active members. And as for 40 being the time for mid-life crises, I can assure you that this is nonsense -- 40 is when things start getting 'really' interesting."
Derk Haank
CEO, Springer Science+Business Media
"STM demonstrates a dynamic attitude to research publishing. As a member of its Future Lab Committee, I welcome the opportunity to talk to fellow publishers not only about our industry but also more generally about what is happening in the wider world of technology and how these developments might apply to publishing. Being part of STM enables us to be actively engaged with all participants in our community from the researcher to the library to the publisher. When we are successfully engaged with our community, we will take the very beset decisions for our products and business."
Gillian Howcroft, Director
Editorial E-Projects
Taylor & Francis
"I have had the privilege of being part of STM for 33 of its 40 years. When I started my STM participation, I was strongly encouraged by my then boss and Elsevier Chairman, Otto ter Haar, who was an early STM leader. Otto made STM for me something more than the "old boys club" it had already become for its inner circle. He encouraged me to be an early (first? I can't remember) chair of its Innovation Committee and later to participate in its original Library Relations Committee."
"I recall Lex asking for advice when he stepped into head STM. My recommendation: make STM the leading voice for STM publishers in Europe. And that is what it has, indeed, become. Congratulations to all who have had a hand in making STM's voice heard both in Europe and more broadly internationally."
"Looking forward, STM must continue to be an important representative for us with our stakeholder communities. Always looking to partner and listen, STM builds on well-researched and well-thought-out initiatives. The authoritative, fact-based reasoning that underlies STM's positions is invaluable."
"I wish those who have taken up the STM cause strength for the significant challenges ahead."
Karen Hunter
Senior Vice President
Elsevier
"I was proud to serve on the STM Board during the era of the creation of CrossRef and the beginning of a much more active period for the Association. Under Michael Mabe's leadership, I expect that process to continue far into the future."
Tim Ingoldsby
Director of Strategic Initiatives and Publisher Relations
American Institute of Physics
"STM has established itself as one of the key member associations for anyone working in the world of academic scholarly publishing. Always at the forefront in terms of knowing what the issues of the day are and where the industry is going, the role the organization plays in presenting a clear and reliable voice on behalf of the scholarly publishing community is an invaluable one particularly in the period of continual change and evolution that we now operate in."
Fiona Kearney, Director, UK Business Development & Rights
Academic Books and Journals Divisions
Oxford University Press
"When I was personally invited some 35 years ago by an admired elder colleague to join STM, this was a big honour for me: STM was then a small more or less exclusive society of publishers in the traditional sense. But it was as yet even an active, resolute body caring for the interests of the publishing industry, esp. copyright. Over the years STM has changed its character totally parallel to the deep structural changes in publishing: the times of the gentleman publisher running "his" company are all over: STM reflects now the professional, complex and specialized structure of publishing today. By this STM has developed into a highly efficient organisation with a multiplied expert staff and is an extremely helpful forerunner into the digital age."
Wulf D. v. Lucius
Lucius & Lucius Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
"During my years as an STM member and regular meeting attendee, I have seen the association grow and change from a club for senior executives to a modern and forward thinking organization. In 40 years, there have been enormous changes in our industry and it is a testament to the lobbying of STM and its members that our publishing sector remains strong and committed to high quality scientific communication. It has been my honor to serve as Chair of the Board in the last year and I have been impressed with the commitment and enthusiasm of the membership to continue promoting the value of publishing and publishers."
Jayne Marks, Vice President & Editorial Director
Sage Publications
STM Board Chair
"FEP and STM have been launched approximatiely at the same time, demonstrating the need to improve the understanding, in public affairs, of the crucial role played by publishers. 40 years down the road, before the digital revolution, we already needed to explain the added value of publishing. In 2009, this is even more important due to the constant challenges faced by our sector. For the last 40 years, FEP and STM collaboration have been exemplary to the benefit of all publishers and I trust it will remain so in the future. FEP wishes a very happy anniversary to STM."
Federico Motta, President
FEP
"STM provides dynamic leadership and strong advocacy for not-for-profit scholarly publishers in the social sciences and the humanities. STM is not just for large commercial publishers in science, technical, and medical publishing. Surprised? Your should not be, as, for the last 40 years, STM has steadily advanced its agenda in all of its areas of activity - for all its members - from copyright and legal issues to the standards and technology that have revolutionized our entire industry. Most recently, it has undertaken the ambitious PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) Project, with the European Commission, to investigate the effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access) on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The project should be a fruitful and productive collaboration between publishers, repositories and researchers and will last until 2011. This demonstrates that STM continues to serve the STM Publisher community in novel and relevant ways.
It has been a privilege to be Treasurer of such a forward-looking and inclusive international trade organization and, and as it celebrates its 40th birthday, we should remember that "when you are over the hill you pick up speed"!"
Rhonda Oliver, Managing Director
Portland Press
"When I was in library school, decades ago, learning about the founding of the first scientific journals, I was jealous. I imagined what it must have been like in the 17th century, in the cafes of Paris and the coffeehouses of London, where very smart and creative people were trying to figure out how to use the latest information technology to advance the cause of science and scholarship. What an exciting time it must have been! But now, if those people could see into our future, they would be incredibly jealous of us, because we are in the midst of developing a scholarly communication system that they couldn't even have imagined. It will require the combined efforts of all of the stakeholders involved to fully realize that potential. The STM Association has been, and will continue to be, a very important player in that development."
T. Scott Plutchak
Director
Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
To STM on the celebration of its 40th anniversary and its moving Forward from Forty
"STM publishing is crucial to the knowledge based society. Never before has so much information been available to user communities and the flow of new information is increasing apace. STM publishers guarantee reliable high quality information, indispensible to science and education. STM perfectly fulfils the vital information giving role needed to provide stable framework conditions to allow the publishing industry to fulfill this role. "IFRRO values STM's membership its cooperation with STM and congratulates on the celebration of its 40th anniversary."Brussels, August 21st 2009
Olav Stokkmo
Chief Executive of IFRRO
"STM was founded to provide publishers with an international body to fight for copyright protection around the world, at a time when other publishing organizations did not always have that at the top of their agendas. For forty years, STM has kept that focus, and its efforts to ensure good (and prevent bad) copyright legislation and enforcement have been a beacon to other organizations. The current digital copyright environment, imperfect and fragile though it is, would not be pleasant to contemplate had STM not existed. I look forward to STM's future activities with confidence that it will continue to represent publishers' interests effectively and intelligently."
Eric Swanson, Senior Vice President
Scientific, Technical Medical & Scholarly Publishing
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
"Now more than ever, STM and PSP share a joint vision to advance scholarly publishing. With digitization making the world smaller while at the same time, the concept of scholarly publishing is expanding and diversifying, PSP values our partnership with STM to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing environment. Technology has diminished the distance of the ocean between us, and as well all adapt to the new global marketplace, STM is vital and progressive. Everyone at PSP congratulates STM on forty successful years and we look forward to a collaboration to move scholarly publishing forward."
John Tagler, Vice President & Executive Director, Sara Pinto, Director,
Kate Kolendo, Project Manager
Association of American Publishers/Professional & Scholarly Publishing
"Over forty years has grown from a timely idea to a vital force. STM has become the aggregation point for the international community of publishers dedicated to meeting the needs and furthering the aims of researchers and scholars worldwide. We are a successful industry working on the frontline of digital delivery and The Publishers Association of the UK as a national association with global reach looks forward to building on our synergetic relationship with STM to progress our jointly held agenda. As innovation and evolution in our marketplace gathers pace, we shall be addressing such issues as the transition to e-only delivery, secure archiving, sustainable business models and enabling text and data mining with our international partners. Our industry has travelled far in those forty years, but the alliances and partnerships that have been established along the way will become even more critical to our industry's continuing success as the pace of development continues to accelerate over the next ten years and we move towards universal access to publicly funded research outputs."
Graham Taylor, Director
Educational, Academic and Professional Publishing
The Publishers Association
"Over the last 40 years, STM has done exactly what it has set out to do - be the voice of the scientific, technical and medical publishing community. The deep conversations held within STM on key matters such as copyright and piracy have become indispensible, especially in the mists of a rapidly changing publishing landscape"
Dr. Alicia Wise, Chief Executive
Publishers Licensing Society
