CELEBRATING OXFORDSHIRE SCIENCE
Publishing in a small Midlands
town: the special case of Oxford
Mon 1 Dec, 2003
What could draw together the
Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, the President of the Publishers
Association, the Chief Executive of the development agency for the 22nd
largest economy in the world (South East England), and seventy other economic
and cultural planners, local authority councillors and officers, academics,
printers, designers and publishing managers from major multinationals
to one-person businesses? The answer was the conference on the Future
of Oxfordshire as a Centre for Publishing held at the Saïd Business
School last week and jointly sponsored by the South East England Development
Agency, Oxford Inspires and Oxford Brookes University.
In no other city in the UK—and perhaps in the world—is publishing
so important in the local economy. There are 3500 people employed directly
in publishing companies in the city and another 2000 in the county and
a penumbra of thousands of suppliers and freelancers. The industry is
now the largest local commercial employer ahead of the automotive sector.
Speakers were united in identifying the attraction of the perceived Oxford
lifestyle, the pivotal location in relation to London, Heathrow and the
UK transport network, the Oxford brand, the range of publishing services
from agents and packagers to designers, marketing companies, distributors
and a major international centre for publishing education at Oxford Brookes
University. Above all there is the pool of highly qualified labour. These
are the reasons why Oxford is now a world capital for academic and STM
book and journal publishing, home to two of the six leading educational
publishers and two of the four leading ELT publishers in the UK, as well
as over 200 small and medium publishing businesses.
However, delegates recognized that this publishing prosperity is far from
secure. Of the major companies with bases in Oxford—OUP, Reed Elsevier,
Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, Macmillan—probably only OUP has
to be here. Henry Reece, chief executive of OUP, pointed out that, while
his company employed nearly 2000 people locally, 80% of the company business
was outside the UK and although they had added £120m in turnover
over the last five years they had added only 37 more staff in Oxford.
There has been job transfer out of Oxford and job losses in educational
publishing. The whole basis of commercial academic journal publishing
is under question and Oxford’s attraction as a location is threatened
by shortcomings in transport and education infrastructure and the high
cost of accommodation. As the Leader of the City Council, himself a publisher,
observed, the average cost of a house in Oxford is ten times the average
salary.
Jo Wilcock from the recruitment agency Inspired Selection and Cathy Atkinson,
chair of the Oxford Society of Young Publishers had both conducted surveys
demonstrating the very low level of entry and early career salaries in
Oxford publishing and the fact that they had increased well below inflation
and London rates in recent years. Perhaps most worrying was the loss of
very able young industry entrants after a few years—a disenchantment
that was confirmed by some of the younger publishers present.
What came out of the conference was a determination to confront the seriousness
of the challenges faced by what was currently such a vibrant part of the
local economic and cultural scene. The existing local collaborative networks
such as the Oxford Publishing Society, the Oxford Society of Young Publishers
and Oxmedia Network pledged their commitment to work on the issues: a
concerted effort to get broadband access to the rural publishing companies
and the many freelances scattered through the county; the development
of services to start-ups and small companies to help with financial planning,
office accommodation and training; and the establishment of a forum for
the industry, the local agencies and authorities.
Finally, Robert Hutchison of Oxford Inspires announced a huge celebration
of literacy, authorship and publishing in the city and county for 2007.
It was all very Oxford—a shaky start to publishing there in 1476,
but the prospect of something brilliant and inimitable after a few centuries.
Paul Richardson
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