John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley, is an American multinational publishing company which focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company was founded in 1807 and produces books, journals,[2] and encyclopedias, in print and electronically, as well as online products and services,[3] training materials, and educational materials for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students.[4]
History
The company was established in 1807 when Charles Wiley opened a print shop in Manhattan. The company was the publisher of 19th century American literary figures like James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as of legal, religious, and other non-fiction titles. The firm took its current name in 1865. Wiley later shifted its focus to scientific, technical, and engineering subject areas, abandoning its literary interests.
Wiley's son John (born in Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York City, on October 4, 1808; died in East Orange, New Jersey, on February 21, 1891) took over the business when Charles Wiley died in 1826. The firm was successively named Wiley, Lane & Co., next Wiley & Putnam, and then John Wiley. The company acquired its present name in 1876, when John's second son William H. Wiley joined his brother Charles in the business.[5] Through the 20th century, the company expanded its publishing activities, the sciences, and higher education.[6]
In 1960 Wiley set up a European branch in London, which later moved to Chichester, England.[7] In 1982, Wiley acquired the publishing operations of the British firm Heyden & Son.[8] In 1989, Wiley acquired the life science publisher Liss.[9] In 1996, Wiley acquired the German technical publisher VCH.[10][11]
In 1997, Wiley acquired the professional publisher Van Nostrand Reinhold (the successor to the company started by David Van Nostrand) from Thomson Learning.[12] In 1999, Wiley acquired the professional publisher Jossey-Bass from Pearson.[13]
In 2001, Wiley acquired the publisher Hungry Minds (formerly IDG Books, including most titles formerly published by Macmillan General Reference) from International Data Group.[14][15] In 2005, Wiley acquired the British medical publisher Whurr.[16]
Wiley marked its bicentennial in 2007.[17] In conjunction with the anniversary, the company published Knowledge for Generations: Wiley and the Global Publishing Industry, 1807–2007, depicting Wiley's role in the evolution of publishing against a social, cultural, and economic backdrop. Wiley has also created an online community called Wiley Living History, offering excerpts from Knowledge for Generations and a forum for visitors and Wiley employees to post their comments and anecdotes. In 2021, Wiley acquired Hindawi[18] and J&J Editorial.[19]
In 2023, Academic Partnerships acquired Wiley's online education business for $150 million.[20]
Emerging markets
In December 2010, Wiley opened an office in Dubai.[21] Wiley established publishing operations in India in 2006 (though it has had a sales presence since 1966), and has established a presence in North Africa through sales contracts with academic institutions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.[22] Wiley Brasil Editora LTDA in São Paulo, Brazil, was established in 2012.[23]
Acquisitions
Wiley acquired Blackwell Publishing in February 2007 for US$1.12 billion.[24][25] The combined business, named Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (also known as
Products
Brands and partnerships
Wiley's Professional Development brands include For Dummies, Jossey-Bass, Pfeiffer, Wrox Press, J.K. Lasser, Sybex, Fisher Investments Press, and Bloomberg Press. The STMS business is also known as Wiley-Blackwell, formed following the acquisition of Blackwell Publishing in February 2007. Brands include The Cochrane Library and more than 1,500 journals.
Wiley-Blackwell offers journal publishing services for other organizations, some of them are American Cancer Society and The Physiological Society.[43] Wiley, along with other publishers, created CourseSmart as an online retailer selling college textbooks as eBooks.[44]
In 2016, Wiley launched a worldwide partnership with
Corporate structure
Governance and operations
While the company is led by an independent management team and Board of Directors, the involvement of the Wiley family is ongoing, with sixth-generation members (and siblings) Peter Booth Wiley as the non-executive chairman of the board and Bradford Wiley II as a Director and past chairman of the board. Seventh-generation members Jesse and Nate Wiley work in the company's Professional/Trade and Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly businesses, respectively.
Wiley has been publicly owned since 1962, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1995; its stock is traded under the symbols nyse: WLY (for its Class A stock) and nyse: WLYB (for its class B stock).
Wiley's operations are organized into three business divisions:
The company has approximately 10,000 employees worldwide, with headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey, since 2002.
- Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (STMS), also known as Wiley-Blackwell
- Professional Development
- Global Education
Corporate culture
Controversies
Forced inclusion of content in AI LLM training
In August 2024, it was reported that Wiley was projected to earn $44 million (£33 million) by providing Artificial Intelligence (AI) firms access to Wiley-published content for the purpose of training Large Language Models (LLMs) and that authors would not have the option to "opt out" of including their work in these training data sets. Groups representing authors, including the Society of Authors and the Creators' Rights Alliance, have expressed ethical concerns about these deals, citing a lack of transparency from publishers and affirmative consent from authors.[74]
Journal protests
In 2020, the entire editorial board of the European Law Journal resigned over a dispute about contract terms and the behavior of its publisher, Wiley. The staff alleged that Wiley did not allow the editorial board members to decide editorial appointments and decisions.[75]
A majority of the editorial board of the journal Diversity & Distributions resigned in 2018 after Wiley allegedly blocked the publication of a letter protesting the publisher's decision to make the journal entirely open access.
Copyright cases
Hindawi case
In 2021, Wiley purchased another Open Access company named Hindawi.[84] Shortly after, many articles published by Hindawi were retracted and Scopus disconnected all of them from their database.
Photographer copyrights
A 2013 lawsuit brought by a stock photo agency for alleged violation of a 1997 license was dismissed for procedural reasons.[85]
A 2014 ruling by the District Court for the Southern District of New York,[86] later affirmed by the Second Circuit,[87]
Antitrust cases
In September 2024, Lucina Uddin, a neuroscience professor at UCLA, sued John Wiley & Sons along with five other academic journal publishers in a proposed class-action lawsuit, alleging that the publishers violated antitrust law by agreeing not to compete against each other for manuscripts and by denying scholars payment for peer review services.[96][97]
Further reading
External links
References
- FY 2024 Annual Report (Form 10-K) U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, June 26, 2024^
- Journal Tier List www.journaltierlist.com, retrieved 2024-09-08^
- Wiley: Redesign and redecorate your home the simple way with Home Design 3D For Dummies