LPC Blog

The Library Publishing Coalition Blog is used to share news and updates about the LPC and the Library Publishing Forum, to draw attention to items of interest to the community, and to publish informal commentaries by LPC members and friends.

March 29, 2019

New LPC Board members elected

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The 9-member Library Publishing Coalition Board oversees the governance, organizational structure, Bylaws, and the review and direction of the membership of the Library Publishing Coalition. We have three newly-elected Board members, with terms running from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2022:

  • Karen Bjork, Portland State University
  • Christine Fruin, Atla
  • Sarah Hare, Indiana University

They will join the returning Board members:

  • Kate McCready, University of Minnesota (2017-2020)
  • Catherine Mitchell, California Digital Library (2017-2020)
  • Ted Polley, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis  (2018-2020)
  • Jody Bailey, Emory University (2018-2021)
  • Vanessa Gabler, University of Pittsburgh (2018-2021)
  • Scott Warren, Syracuse University (2018-2021)

Many thanks to our outgoing Board members Marilyn Billings and Joshua Neds-Fox for their service!

Library Publishing Forum 2020, May 4-6, Worcester, MA
March 27, 2019

UMass Med School selected as the host for the 2020 Library Publishing Forum

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The formal announcement about next year’s Forum dates and location will be made at this year’s Forum, but to get the information out as soon as possible (and because we are just too excited to keep it to ourselves), we are letting the community know that, after an open call for proposals, the University of Massachusetts Medical School has been selected as the host for the 2020 Library Publishing Forum. Next year’s Forum will take place May 4-6 on UMass Med School’s campus in Worcester, MA.

Statement from University of Massachusetts Medical School:

“UMass Med School’s Lamar Soutter Library is excited to host the scholarly publishing community and promote the values of open and sustainable scholarship, diversity, and inclusivity in library publishing. The 2020 Forum will be held  in the Albert Sherman Center (ASC), the newest education and research building on the UMMS campus.

Lamar Soutter Library manages eScholarship@UMMS, the open access digital archive and publishing system for the UMMS community. Hosting the Forum will expose participants to the pivotal work in medical library publishing being accomplished at UMMS.

Thank you for the honor of hosting this international conference. We look forward to providing a venue of ease, stimulating and provocative scholarly publishing topics, and the opportunity to highlight a city steeped in history, diversity, and contemporary living. UMMS is excited to bring the ‘heart of the Commonwealth’ to the 2020 Forum.”

Statement from LPC:

“We are delighted to join the UMass Med School Lamar Soutter Library in bringing the 2020 Library Publishing Forum to a new geographic region, full of innovative library publishers. The 2020 Forum will be a fantastic opportunity to strengthen connections across our community of practice and to learn from UMMS’s leadership in medical library publishing. The LPC sincerely thanks UMass Med School for hosting next year’s Forum!”

We look forward to seeing you all in Worcester next year!

March 21, 2019

Announcing the winners of the 2019 Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing

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As participation in library publishing grows, the development of a strong evidence base to inform best practices and demonstrate impact is essential. To encourage research and theoretical work about library publishing services, the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) gives an annual Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing. The award recognizes significant and timely contributions to library publishing theory and practice.

LPC’s Research Committee is delighted to announce that this year’s award recipients are Kate McCready and Emma Molls for their article, “Developing a Business Plan for a Library Publishing Program.” With the continued growth of library publishing programs, McCready and Molls’s article provides a business plan template that can be used to assist library publishers as they work to provide an understanding of program goals and services to their campus communities. This excellent article is highly relevant, very timely, and has the potential to change practice among library publishers.

Kate and Emma’s work will be formally recognized at the 2019 Library Publishing Forum in Vancouver, BC. They will receive a cash award of $250, travel support to attend the Forum, and an opportunity to share this work with the community.

In addition, the Committee has decided to award honorable mentions to Dave S. Ghamandi for his article, “Liberation through Cooperation: How Library Publishing Can Save Scholarly Journals from Neoliberalism”  and Stephanie S. Rosen for her work, Accessibility & Publishing, Ghamandi’s piece engages with both the practical and the theoretical, providing a conceptual foundation for the development of publishing models that offer an alternative to the current paradigm, which he argues operates from a neoliberal ideology. Rosen’s work foregrounds accessibility as a primary concern of publishing, drawing attention to the importance of an intentional focus on accessibility issues if we are truly to work towards an ethical and equitable publishing future.

Finally, the committee would like to recognize the important work of the Library Publishing Coalition Ethical Framework Task Force for their publication, Ethical Framework for Library Publishing.

March 21, 2019

Reflections on the first meeting of the IFLA Special Interest Group on Library Publishing

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Sixty librarians met in Dublin, Ireland on Feb 28 – Mar1, 2019 as the first meeting of the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA)’s new Special Interest Group on Library Publishing.  The idea for this group developed from a pre-conference on library publishing in Michigan, USA prior to the 2016 IFLA World Congress/Annual Conference.  IFLA approved the new Special Interest Group in the fall of 2018.  The Dublin Business School eagerly offered to host the group’s first meeting, providing a comfortable venue for inspiring presentations and rich dialogue.  During the meeting, news broke of the University of California’s decision not to renew subscriptions to Elsevier’s ScienceDirect journals package, a reminder of the urgency of the need to make scholarly work accessible and the potential role of library publishing to address these needs.

Library publishing aligns well with the traditional library mission to share knowledge freely.  As knowledge has transformed from print to digital formats, library publishing is a logical modern application of the library mission.  Approaches in library publishing from the University of Florida, Stockholm University, White Rose University Press in the UK, Pennsylvania State University and case studies shared throughout the meeting affirmed the strategic role for library publishing.  Presenters candidly shared successes and challenges experienced in their publishing activities including resources utilized.  Librarians offer a unique perspective to publishing as a result of their expertise in knowledge curation, dissemination and preservation.

Academic library publishers are also keen to educate users throughout the publishing process.  A session on education and mentoring in library publishing highlighted the publication of appropriate curriculum including the Library Publishing Coalition’s An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, a pilot course required of student editors at Columbia University, embedding library publishing within a university writing course at Simon Fraser University, and development of a certification program to improve digital pedagogy among faculty with resulting massive open online courses (MOOCs) demonstrating improved student performance at Olso Metropolitan University.  Library publishing lends itself to the production of Open Educational Resources and other informational literacy educational objectives such as addressing misconceptions on campus about open access, options for authors rights retention and types of peer review.

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March 8, 2019

Help us livestream the 2019 Library Publishing Forum!

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Help us livestream the 2019 Library Publishing Forum! Volunteers needed. No experience required, training provided. @LibPubCoalition. #LPForum19. http://bit.ly/lpforum19_livestream. Library Publishing Coalition.

In order to make our program more accessible to members of the community who cannot attend in person, the LPC Program Committee has decided once again to livestream the 2019 Library Publishing Forum. We’re seeking interested volunteers to join us in a coordinated effort to capture and stream conference sessions live to Twitter (via Twitter’s livestreaming platform, Periscope).

Here’s how this will work:

  • If you have a smartphone that you can use to capture and stream sessions to Twitter, and if you are interested in joining us in this effort, please let us know your name and contact information via this form by Monday, April 8. Please note that we will have access to campus wifi, so you will not be required to use your wireless data connection for this.
  • Educopia’s communications manager will send a training manual to each volunteer and will be available to answer any questions before and during the conference. If a volunteer would like additional training ahead of the conference, one-on-one training sessions can be arranged.
  • Educopia will provide tripods and microphones in each room to improve the quality of the streaming.
  • Each volunteer will receive their livestreaming assignments (including session, room number and location, tweet text, and presenters) via email the week before the conference. We will take volunteer preferences for livestreaming assignments into account whenever possible.
  • We will only stream presentations where the presenter has given us permission to do so.

We hope you’ll consider helping us make this year’s Forum more accessible and inclusive by volunteering to livestream sessions! Please do sign up if you’re interested, or feel free to email Hannah Ballard (hannah@educopia.org) if you have any questions or concerns.

Volunteer

Promo image for 2019 Forum
March 6, 2019

Preliminary program for the Library Publishing Forum is live!

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The preliminary program for the 2019 Library Publishing Forum is now available, with titles and presenter names for all sessions.  Abstracts and other details will follow later this month.  As you can see, we have a ton of fantastic sessions from a wide range of presenters, as well as a couple of optional lunchtime meetups. We are also delighted to announce that the Forum reception on Thursday evening (May 9) will be held at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art!

Past Forum attendees may note a difference in this year’s program, with four concurrent sessions in each time slot. This is an experiment by the Program Committee to balance the limitations of space and time with the many excellent proposals which were submitted. We look forward to hearing the community’s feedback on this setup to inform the program for future Forums!

View the Preliminary Program