For some time, it has been planned that UCL should have its own university press, as a vehicle for making high-quality scholarly research widely available, and the wish was not to replicate an existing university press model. With a strong commitment to Open Access in place at UCL already, an Open Access press seemed the logical next step and UCL Press was born.
The UCL Press imprint had existed before, as part of UCL first and then as an imprint ultimately licensed to Taylor and Francis. The Director of Library Services negotiated the repatriation of the rights in the imprint, a Board was established and the UCL Press Publishing Manager joined in November 2013 to set up the UCL publishing operation from scratch.
From the very first call for proposals in February 2014, it has surprised everyone involved in the Press just how much interest and support there has been from potential authors, and just how many opportunities there are for publishing at UCL.
Interestingly, our first list represents a little-known aspect of UCL – its museums and collections. UCL Library Services’ Special Collections feature rare illuminated medieval manuscripts, incunabula and literary archives such as that of George Orwell among its holdings. This is the first time those collections have been celebrated in an illustrated book, along with an enhanced digital edition. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology celebrates its centenary this June – a happy coincidence – and UCL Press is delighted to publish a book specifically devoted to the Petrie, which we hope will bring the collections to a wider audience.
We are also delighted to include among our first publications a book by award-winning author Professor Lisa Jardine CBE, Professor of Renaissance Studies at UCL and Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. Temptation in the Archives is a collection of her previously unpublished essays and lectures on Golden Age Dutch history. This is a fitting tribute to Professor Jardine, who has recently been made a Fellow of the Royal Society.
UCL Press is proud to lead the way in Open Access publishing, reasserting the university’s role in the research workflow by taking on the dissemination of research, by both UCL and non-UCL academics. The Press will focus on publishing scholarly monographs, edited collections, textbooks and journals and will make them freely available in PDF form, as well as selling print copies.
News will appear here regularly – please check back to see our latest publications