Could there be a better ally for the year 2022 than a deity bearing apples that bestow eternal youth?
Welcome aboard, Idunn! Named after the Norse goddess, the digital publishing arm of Universitetsforlaget—known in English as Scandinavian University Press—has been invigorating Norway’s scholarly community since 2004.
Now this influential publisher of academic journals, books, and digital services has turned to Atypon to start its new digital chapter.
“For us, this is like changing from a V8 to a V12 engine. All processes can be executed in a stronger, faster and more professional way than before, and when it comes to platform technology, we are now well rigged for competition on an international level.” —Nils Lahlum, Scandinavian University Press
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Through Idunn and other initiatives, Scandinavian University Press is the largest Nordic publisher of open access books and publications. Across scholarly disciplines including sciences, economics, social sciences, health, literature, and law, they bring many of Norway’s most distinguished writers to the world. Since its launch almost 20 years ago, Idunn has grown from approximately 30 journals to more than 70 journals and books, with more than 40,000 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. They also boast an uncommonly intrepid track record for actively exploring and thoughtfully leveraging new publishing channels.
Expanding those efforts on behalf of existing readers, and even larger international audiences, led this future-oriented publisher with strong roots in the best of Norway’s academic publishing tradition to choose Literatum for their new future-focused platform.
We’re excited to be relaunching idunn.no and expanding it in dynamic new directions aimed at fulfilling Scandinavian University Press’s enduring mission to “leave a lasting impression on the knowledge society”!
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We asked Nils Lahlum, Editor-in-Chief at Universitetsforlaget, to share his favorite aspect of the new Idunn site. improvements for authors or readers. “Several things could be emphasized,” he says, “but searching and browsing functionality as well as how we can display and develop metrics are very important features for our authors, editorial boards, readers and customers.”
In terms of benefits for authors and readers, Nils is most excited about the new and advanced features related to articles and book chapters—such as how to include and display images, figures, data, and so on to build in new technology (e.g., multimedia).
And for Universitetsforlaget staff, “the way we can gain deep usage insight and provide a seamless customer experience, in a way that safeguards international regulations on storage and use of personal data, is a great benefit.”
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Despite punching above their weight in terms of influence, Scandinavian University Press is a smaller academic publisher, with about 70 employees.
There will ultimately be four versions of the new idunn.no site—first in English and Norwegian, later in Swedish and Danish—to enable Scandinavian University Press to attract new journals and societies from across Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
Can anyone say, “How do you like them apples?” in Norwegian?
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Welcome to Atypon, Universitetsforlaget! We look forward to the perspectives you bring to our community of peers.