The London Book Fair 2025 took place between 11th and 13th March. The venue was Olympia, as it has been for the past few years – and although earlier fairs have been held at Earl’s Court, Excel and even, in the distant past, at the Barbican, to old lags, alias seasoned fairgoers, Olympia feels like its true home.
Unsurprisingly, given the recent newspaper column inches devoted to Artificial Intelligence and changes in copyright law, intellectual property dominated much of the discussion at the fair. The UK Intellectual Property Office has apparently received more than 13,000 responses to its recent consultation on copyright. One of the book fair editions of The Bookseller reported that the Association of American Publishers [AAP] “has not ruled out litigation against tech giants in the ongoing tussle over the use of Artificial Intelligence.” The UK and the USA are working closely together to address the threats involved. Maria Pallante, President and Chief Executive of the AAP, was able to report that there has so far been one judicial decision made in favour of publishers and authors, in the case of Thomson Reuters versus Ross Intelligence, when the court found that copying of headnotes for machine learning is not fair use. She said that AI presents a conundrum: “Policymakers worldwide are under a lot of pressure both to capture the economic potential of AI and to regulate cautiously.”
Establishing fair use of Artificial Intelligence of course holds relevance for all sectors of the publishing industry but is perhaps even more significant for academic publishers and authors than for those in the “trade” sector. The academic sector demonstrates in microcosm the conundrum identified by Maria Pallante: on the one hand, academic librarians are using AI to maximise time efficiencies and to help academics to push back the boundaries of their research; on the other hand, those same academics do not wish their future career trajectories to be jeopardised by unfair and unacknowledged poaching of their work.
Aside from AI, the academic publishers present at the fair had their own set of problems to contend with. For at least the third year in succession, academic publishers typically took smaller stands and one or two of the big names were absent altogether. The usual contemporary scholarly publishing issues were aired at the fair – open access, the changing role of the librarian, support for the “economic south” – but the topic most discussed, albeit in a subdued way by those not wishing to judge a well-liked trading partner, was the recent decision made by one of the top two aggregators to sell to libraries by subscription only. The fall-out from this decision has been huge and, despite some backtracking, it remains controversial. Further developments are likely to be announced in the next few weeks.
Book manufacturers and booksellers made headlines in fair editions of The Bookseller and Publishers Weekly. The latter featured a two-page spread about Books International. The company’s Vice President, David Hetherington, said, “Despite concerns about Amazon’s dominance, its presence has catalysed innovation and raised standards across the board” , pointing out that third-party logistics companies have had to rise to new demands from the industry that have resulted in improved efficiencies and a more streamlined supply chain. James Daunt, CEO of Waterstones and Barnes and Noble, took part in a panel session in which David Shelley, CEO of Hachette UK, also spoke. Both emphasised that it is essential that publishers and booksellers engage with children more. Daunt said that events for children in bookshops had yet to reach pre-Covid levels; he was optimistic about the future but felt there was still room for improvement.
As has been our practice for several years, we at Gold Leaf attended the book fair on the first two days but not the third. Tuesday was a very busy day – at times the aisles were so congested that it was difficult to move from one meeting to another. However, Wednesday seemed much quieter – and probably not as busy as the Wednesday of the 2024 fair. The London Book Fair is still a very enjoyable and important event, one which still sets the worlds of publishing and bookselling ablaze with new ideas and new angles on old ideas. However, it is impossible not to reflect that, like children’s bookshop events, the fair itself has yet to reach its pre-Covid potential, assailed as it has been by the double-whammy of lower post-Covid attendance generally and the downturn in the fortunes of academic publishing specifically. Perhaps, if the litigation is handled carefully, AI may herald a resurgence in the fortunes of all.
[Linda Bennett]
Gold Leaf 