Oxford

Amid the ambient wails of doom about the publishing industry, I'd like to enter a note of encouragement. The mainstream may be getting dumber by the day, but we are living in what looks like a golden age of publishing for, of all people, the university presses.

At the moment, I don't think there's a trade publishing house producing high-calibre, serious non-fiction of the quality and variety of Yale University Press; and snapping at its heels are Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Cambridge and Chicago.

New York-based debating circle with Intelligence Squared U.S. (IQ2US), bringing you “Oxford-style debates live from New York City,” has put up an alert for a soporific and unprovocative little debate to open 2015, on the topic of: “Amazon Is The Reader’s Friend.” That ought to elicit absolutely no controversy or attention whatsoever … The IQ2 introduction to […]

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Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Monday said it has completed the acquisition of Osprey Publishing Ltd, an Oxford-based military and natural history publisher, from private equity ownership for GBP4.6 million in cash and shares.

In a statement, Bloomsbury said it acquired the publisher from The Third Alcuin Fund LP, a fund managed by Alcuin Capital Partners LLP, which specialises in making growth capital investments and supporting management buy-outs in smaller-middle market companies based in the UK.

Publishers in Oxfordshire, home of the Oxford University Press, have received a grant of £150,000 [$256,884] from the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education  as part of a public/private co-investment strategy for developing skills in the industry. Announced by Oxford Brookes University, which is coordinating the recipient Oxfordshire Publishing Cluster Group […]

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A technological breakthrough by Oxford University scientists, just announced in Science Daily, apparently “will make it possible to create pixels just a few hundred nanometres across that could pave the way for extremely high-resolution and low-energy thin, flexible displays for applications such as ‘smart’ glasses, synthetic retinas, and foldable screens.” Including, of course, screens for […]

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The World Literacy Summit 2014, which “aims to build awareness of the global literacy crisis and provide opportunities for participants to develop strategic plans, exchange information, find solutions and build partnerships to improve literacy standards worldwide,” has just opened in Oxford. This year, the theme is “Literacies: the Power to Change,” which allows for exploration […]

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