Technology terms are often mysterious - DNS, cache, cookies, frameworks, sandbox, barks, front end/back end, firewalls, to name just a few. It takes time to become familiar with these words and their meanings. Most of the time these terms are benign. At other times they are non-inclusive, offensive, and downright unnecessary. Racist and gendered language is found in many software and technology projects. The terms Master/Slave and blacklist/whitelist are prime examples of technology terms that refer to inequitable social structures, imply value, and flat out fail to accurately describe their function.

The Koha community, along with many other companies and open source projects, continue to move towards using inclusive language in their code bases. In the area of gender inclusivity, the Koha community has enhanced the code multiple times to remove gendered code comments and include more neutrality in relation to gender in the patron module. (See Bugzilla: 22716 5020 18432 14652 19988 17701 25364 25340). Just recently a new omnibus ticket was filed to change instances of blacklist and whitelist to deny list and allow list respectively. (Bugzilla 25708) The first patch has already been submitted to change a system preference title from NotesBlackList to NotesDenyList. This is exciting, much-needed work; but just the start. This work of inclusivity is ongoing.

ByWater Solutions is committed to the following:
We are committed to identifying and removing non-inclusive terms from our internal work with our partners through our support and development actions, which we fully control. Whitelist will be allow list, Blacklist will be deny list. Master/Slave system configuration will be Primary/Replica. We will continue to listen to our partners and communities to address other needed language changes in an ongoing manner.
We are committed to working with our open source communities (Koha, Aspen, FOLIO, and Libki) to encourage and participate in discussions on inclusive language, and actively submit changes to code, wiki, and documentation in those communities.
We are committed to working with our upstream providers and the language they use. When needed, we will submit feedback/tickets to those providers asking for changes in their documentation and code.
Creating an inclusive workspace and community is important to all of us at Bywater. And we understand we don't have all the answers or see all the perspectives. If you see an area that we, Koha, Aspen, Libki, FOLIO can improve upon please let us know! We encourage everyone to participate in the discussion. You can reach the ByWater staff through our ticketing system, our webchat, Slack Channel, or by phone. You can report issues directly to Libki, Aspen, and Koha using the below links.

Koha Issues:
Report a Koha Issue

Libki issues:
Report a Libki Client issue

Report a Libki Server Issue

Aspen Issues:
Report an Aspen Issue

FOLIO Issues:
Report a FOLIO Issue

FOLIO Code of Conduct

Leiden / Boston / Paderborn / Singapore / Beijing – 11 June 2020

The German branch of Brill has acquired the portfolio of German publishing house DIE BLAUE EULE, established in Essen.

By signing the transaction agreement, Eva-Maria Hohmann, owner of publishing house DIE BLAUE EULE, and Jörg Persch, managing director of Brill Deutschland GmbH, conclude the takeover of the publishing program as of July 1, 2020. DIE BLAUE EULE was founded in 1983 by Werner L. Hohmann in Essen, with a focus on Philosophy and Art Studies. Later, the research areas Musical Studies and Music Pedagogy were added to this program.

Eva-Maria Hohmann sees the future of the publishing house's well-established program secured by the sale: "After the unexpected death of my husband, who founded the publishing house DIE BLAUE EULE in 1983, I have pursued the goal of placing the publishing house in good hands. Now I am delighted that Brill Germany is giving DIE BLAUE EULE and its authors a future in the rapidly changing media landscape".

Jörg Persch adds: "We consider it a great honor that Mrs. Hohmann entrusts us with her life’s work and that of her husband and founder of the publishing house, and we will look after it carefully and sustainably".

The publishing house's program will be integrated into the portfolio of Brill Deutschland GmbH, to which the imprints Ferdinand Schöningh, Wilhelm Fink and mentis belong. The acquisition includes a backlist of approximately 1400 book titles and 14 active book series. For Brill Deutschland GmbH, this represents a valuable expansion in the areas of Philosophy, Art and Musical Studies, and Education. Through the connection to the parent company in The Netherlands with branches in Boston, Singapore and Beijing, the publications will in the future also be distributed internationally and increasingly digitally.

For more information about this take-over please contact Stephan Kopsieker, Press Department / Public Relations at Brill Germany, via kopsieker@brill.com.

About Brill Deutschland GmbH
Since 2017 the publishing house Ferdinand Schöningh together with the Wilhelm Fink Verlag has been an imprint of Brill Deutschland GmbH. Founded in 1847, the Ferdinand Schöningh publishing house became one of the most renowned Humanities publishing houses in Germany within a few years. Milestones in the company's development were the co-founding of the textbook series Uni-Taschenbücher (UTB) in 1970 and the takeover of the Munich-based Wilhelm Fink Verlag in 1974. In January 2018, mentis Verlag joined this strong association of academic publishers in the Humanities.

About Brill
Founded in 1683 in Leiden, the Netherlands, Brill is a leading international academic publisher in Middle East and Islamic Studies, Asian Studies, Classical Studies, History, Biblical and Religious Studies, Languages & Linguistics, Literature & Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Biology, Education, Social Sciences and International Law. With offices in Leiden (NL), Boston (US), Paderborn (GER), Singapore (SG) and Beijing (CN), Brill today publishes over 300 journals and close to 1,400 new books and reference works each year, available in print and online. Brill also markets a large number of primary source research collections and databases. The company’s key customers are academic and research institutions, libraries, and scholars. Brill is a publicly traded company and is listed on Euronext Amsterdam NV. For further information, please visit Brill.com.

View this media alert online: https://brill.com/newsitem/241/brill-germany-takes-over-the-publishing-p...