World’s Oldest Printing & Publishing House Seeks 21st Century Methods

Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), the oldest printing and publishing house in the world, produces nearly 2,500 academic and educational titles and over 150 journals each year, with distribution to nearly 200 countries. In 1994, Cambridge saw the digital revolution beginning and set-out to update their production processes, improve turnaround times, increase volumes and efficiencies, and proactively maintain their strong leadership position.

Challenge Modernize Production Processes for the Oldest Publishing House in the World

Cambridge US first approached Aptara because of Aptara’s reputation for electronic publishing innovation and its proven ability to optimize production workflows. They sought a forward-thinking and technologically adept vendor to help them leverage emerging advancements in parallel publishing and XML.

Solution A Custom XML-First Workflow and Outsourcing of All Pre-Press Processes

Aptara’s highly skilled technical workforce and state-of-the-art integrated production facilities provided a re-engineered process to meet all of Cambridge’s production operation challenges.

Aptara pioneered an XML-first workflow for Cambridge and worked with them to devise an XML DTD for their books and journals. The new workflow renders the original source files into an XML typescript for copyediting and indexing (at the typescript stage) and delivers full-text XML and ONIX files at first pages. The XML output enables simultaneous multi-channel publishing for print, online and mobile devices.

Results An Expanding Relationship Continues to Advance Cambridge's Objectives

Fueled by Aptara’s delivery quality, value, and scalability advantages, the scope of Cambridge’s relationship with Aptara continually expanded to include the outsourcing of Cambridge operations around the globe.  It also encompasses complete editorial responsibility for a significant subset of Cambridge’s publications − from the raw manuscript through to the finished PDF delivered to the printer, including author management, copyediting, QA, composition, and workflow optimization.

Built and launched by Aptara according to Cambridge’s aggressive timelines, the program has achieved a streamlined end-to-end production system that leverages significant economies of scale.  It employs a hybrid outsourcing model that blends an on- and off-shore approach with over 20 Project Managers dedicated to the Cambridge account in the United States.