Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 14 (IANS) Springer, one of the world’s leading publishers of books on advanced science, technology and medicine with 1,000 top Indian writers in its international database, is to expand operations in India, a company official said Tuesday.

The German company is planning to increase content, editorial structure and distribution networks to penetrate a wider customer base in India, Derk Haank, chief executive of Springer, said here.

The 169-year-old publishing firm has set up a new office in the capital where it will locate 10 editors in different fields to understand Indian sensibilities, content requirement, distribution and facilitate better networking with institutes, scholars’ societies and community of professionals, he added.

“The publishing house will also digitise its entire content so that Indian authors get a global platform and user-base,” Haank said.

Springer publishes more than 2,000 journals and 7,000 new titles every year and has an e-book catalogue of 45,000 books.

The publisher provides knowledge content to 80 Indian universities aided by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), National Institute of Information Technology and several private institutes of higher education like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and its sister organisations, Haank said.

Springer currently has editorial and sales facilities in Chennai and Pune.

The CEO of Springer’s India operations, Sanjeev Goswami said the new initiatives were spurred by the growth in the requirement for scientific books in the country.

“The company’s turnover has been growing at nearly 20 percent,” he said.

The company also publishes the 10 top journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences. The publisher recently acquired the rights to publish the Computer Society of India journal that has a circulation base of 40,000.

The firm was set up by Julius Springer in 1842 in Berlin.