The publishing landscape is changing rapidly. AI-generated books, self-published titles, and automated reprints of public-domain material are increasingly appearing alongside traditionally published books.

Some of these are legitimate publications, but many others are of poor or inconsistent quality. They may have limited editorial oversight, unreliable metadata, poor formatting, or production quality, or offer little added value compared with content already freely available.

The growing number of such publications can create significant challenges for title selection and collection development, particularly when large quantities of titles enter the market without the editorial and quality-control processes traditionally associated with professional publishing.

To help our customers identify these publications more easily, we have introduced an “Uncertain relevance publisher” tag on our website. The tag identifies titles from publishers whose output we believe warrants additional scrutiny when making selection decisions.

The tag is intended to support informed selection rather than automatically exclude individual titles. We continuously monitor developments in the publishing market and regularly review and update the publishers covered by the tag.

Last week, our sales manager Joleen attended LundOnline 2026 in Lund (14–16 October), representing Erasmus Boekhandel at one of the key forums for scholarly communication in the Nordic region.

LundOnline is a biennial conference organised by the Department of Scholarly Communication at Lund University Library, bringing together academic librarians, publishers and other stakeholders to discuss developments and challenges in academic publishing. This year’s programme covered open access and sustainability, national consortium strategies, AI in scholarly publishing, and the implications of CoARA for research evaluation. These are all topics that sit at the heart of how academic libraries are evolving as collections and procurement change.

It was a valuable few days of conversations with librarians from across the Nordic region. If you’d like to continue the conversation, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Erasmus Boekhandel, in partnership with Casalini Libri, announces that the Torrossa Digital Library now includes ebooks and ejournals from more than 750 publishers across Europe and beyond.

The publisher list reads like a map of scholarly publishing itself: long-established university presses such as Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press and Il Mulino sit alongside major international houses like De Gruyter, Bloomsbury, Wiley, and Brepols, and specialist imprints covering everything from classical archaeology to contemporary art history. French, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch publishers all have a strong presence, including L'Harmattan, Franco Angeli and Duncker & Humblot to name a few.

The 750-publisher mark reflects sustained growth for the platform, with new publishers added on an ongoing basis across the humanities, law, social sciences and the arts. For research libraries and institutions building or expanding collections, it marks Torrossa's continued emergence as a significant resource for academic publishing.

Explore the full catalogue at content.torrossa.com.

Erasmus Boekhandel has been recognized by the Koninklijke Boekverkopersbond (KBb) for its significant collaborative role, alongside KBb, the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), LIBER, and other organizations, in successfully ensuring that books were exempted from the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
https://www.boekbond.nl/goed-nieuws-boeken-uitgesloten-van-de-eudr-ontbossingswet/

Through coordinated national and European advocacy, we highlighted that books and other printed materials pose no deforestation risk due to their reliance on certified, recycled or sustainably sourced paper. Our joint lobbying helped convince the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council that including finished printed products in the EUDR would disproportionately burden the book sector, threaten supply chains, and limit citizens’ access to knowledge and culture.

The collective efforts contributed to the EU’s decision in December 2025 to formally exclude books and other printed materials from the scope of the regulation. This outcome safeguards cultural diversity, academic access and the free circulation of books across Europe.

Dear Librarian,

Following the introduction of duties on imports to the US, we would like to address any concerns you may have regarding future shipments of books to your library.

While print material is exempt from tariffs, we are aware that there has been confusion among some shipping agents.

We would like to assure you that we have a consolidated and longstanding partnership with a freight-forwarder based in New Jersey and we have not encountered any difficulties thus far.

Although we do not expect our shipments to be affected by the changes, we will of course continue to carefully monitor the situation and will let our customers know should there be any updates.

We invite you to contact us with any questions or comments regarding our shipments, or for any further assistance.