The organisation has enlisted book production expert Heather O’Connell of Bluebird Consulting to create and facilitate the courses, with input from BIC’s production directors’ steering committee.

“We wanted to make it as accessible as possible and hope it will become like the LCP courses used to be, where people gain a basic level of understanding that they can then build on,” explained O’Connell.

The nine courses on offer include an introduction to production and ‘production for non-production people’, moving through pre-press, eBook creation, understanding paper, colour printing, mono printing and shipping.

BIC and O’Connell have teamed up with a number of printers and paper mills to deliver practical workshops on-site, including CPI in Croydon, St Ives Clays in Bungay and TAG Response and Altaimage in London.

Papermakers Arctic Paper, Holmen, and Garda Paper are also participating, as are continental book printers Printer Trento and Mohndruck, and logistics specialist Woodland Media.

“I’ve worked with the production directors on the content, and with suppliers on delivering it,” O’Connell added. “Inter-disciplinary activity is already taking place, for example we have paper mills keen to come on the print courses. Hopefully the whole industry will benefit.”

She said costs have deliberately been kept low to encourage uptake, varying from £175 to £395 depending upon whether it is a one- or two-day course, and whether or not attendees are members of BIC.

The intention is to run four different dates for each course a year, and to expand the offering to include more advanced levels in future.

For more information visit www.bic.org.uk.