From: Nawin Gupta <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:40:03 -0600 London and Chicago, 12th November 2013 — The Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries is pleased to announce its programme for the upcoming annual ASA Conference, to be held in London on 24-25 February 2014. The conference, dubbed "Transforming the Publishing Landscape", will cover the evolving publishing business, and the forces that are transforming it. The ASA conferences underscore ASA members' credo: maintaining the highest standards of business practice, providing excellence in service and support, facilitating transfer of knowledge to a growing global audience, and helping sustain the knowledge economy. "Subscription agents and intermediaries are at the absolute heart of the scholarly supply chain, linking publishers and other content providers with libraries and other content consumers; the annual ASA conference consistently provides the best coverage of emerging trends in the continuing transformation taking place in scholarly communication," said Mark Carden, chair of the Conference Planning Committee. The two-day programme is richly packed, featuring 24 speakers. The programme opens with a Keynote Address by Youngsuk (Y.S.) Chi, Chairman, Elsevier, covering the "e-volution of publishing." Other featured presentation include Dan Tonkery (CEO, Content Strategies) providing a perspective on the role of agents and intermediaries; Kathy Misunas (Co-Founder, Essential Ideas) offering valuable lessons about threats and opportunities of disintermediation from the travel industry; Sheila Lambie (Sr. Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University) telling us about how future generations of publishers are being trained; and Janne Järvinen (CEO, LM Information) discussing the agents and intermediaries doing what they do best, adding value in the knowledge economy. The keynotes and featured presentations on the programme frame the four sessions: SESSION 1: Covering publisher perspective with speakers from Wiley (Greta Boonen), Georg Thieme Verlag (Bernd Hess), Springer (Roné Robbetze), and the NEJM Group (Eileen Welch); chaired by Lorna Summers from Turpin Distribution. SESSION 2: Providing institution perspective with speakers from University of London (Russell Burke), Portland State University (Jill Emery), Research Consulting (Rob Johnson), Imperial College London (Chris Banks), and Catholic University of Leuven (Hilde Van Kiel); chaired by Paul Harwood from EBSCO. SESSION 3: Discussing the evolving OA landscape with speakers from California Digital Library (Ivy Anderson), European Commission (José Cotta), Sheffield University (Rob Freckleton), Gold OA Infrastructure Initiative (Neil Jacobs), and Max Planck Institute (Ralf Schimmer); chaired by Richard Wynne from Aries System. SESSION 4: Talking about the role of archives and aggregation with speakers from EDINA (Peter Burnhill), Rittenhouse Book Distributors (Clark Morrell), Schweitzer Fachinformationen (Jörg Pieper), and Catholic University of Leuven (Hilde Van Kiel); chaired by Simon Inger from Simon Inger Consulting. ASA Secretary General, Nawin Gupta, said “with the volume and richness of information available, in forms and channels limited only by human imagination and available technological tools, the scholarly publishing landscape is continuing to evolve, transforming roles, expectations, values, and what some consider to be the business of publishing." The 2014 conference will address these issues from the perspective of publishers, institutions, librarians, aggregators, and subscription agents and intermediaries. To learn more about the conference programme, visit www.subscription-agents.org. REGISTRATION for the event is now open, and there are discounts available for early bookings. To register, visit http://www.subscription-agents.org/conferences/asa-conference-2014-booking-form. NAWIN GUPTA, Secretary General Association of Subscription Agents & Intermediaries