almost 100 more signatures have been added to the petition in the last two days. Yesterday, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Seven Days Vermont covered the Petition and closure of the Burlington office. The Seven Days story includes comments from Ashgate's Seth Hibbard on the history of the Burlington office and excerpts from an email interview with Dr. Julia Wright, Professor of English at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose tweet alerted us all that the Burlington office was about to close. Wright states what many of us know to be true, that Ashgate's reputation was about more than the quality of their books. She writes: "[T]hat is one of the reasons many of us liked
working with the publisher — it was an ethical choice as well as a
scholarly one."
Today the Bookseller reported that Lund Humphries has relaunched as an
independent publishing company after splitting from the Ashgate during
the Informa buyout. They have recruited Commissioning editor Val Rose
from Ashgate and Eleanor Hooker, formerly marketing manager at Pickering
& Chatto.If any of you work in academic publishing or know someone who does,
encourage them to hire the talented editors formerly employed by Ashgate &
Pickering & Chatto.
I will try to keep this blog and the Facebook page updated with news coverage so please sending me links to stories I may have overlooked.
Finally, keep the letters coming and keep sharing the Petition.
If you haven't started yours yet, I set out some guidelines on the Petition. To
that you may also wish to add requests for specific information about
the future of Ashgate. Informa still has not made any public statement responding to our concerns for the future of Ashgate. We must maintain our momentum.
Thanks! -Rabia
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