Elections for the Library Publishing Coalition Board open today and will continue through Friday, February 28. Instructions for voting will be sent to each member institution’s voting representative. The candidates are:
- Ally Laird, Penn State University
- Chelsea Johnston, University of Florida
- Emma Molls, University of Minnesota
- Dwayne K. Buttler, University of Louisville
- Jessica Kirschner, Virginia Commonwealth University
Each candidate has provided a brief biography and an election statement:
Ally Laird, Penn State University
Bio: Ally Laird is the Open Publishing Program Specialist at Penn State University, overseeing the Libraries Open Publishing program. Currently, the program supports the publication of nine open access journals, two monographs, five bibliographies, a few digital humanities publications, and will launch conference proceedings publication services in 2020. She participates in the Penn State Libraries Open Initiatives Group, which meets to collaborate on shared Open projects, leads the Open Liaison program, and works to support the Libraries’ Open initiatives at all the Penn State campuses across Pennsylvania. She currently serves as the chair of the Professional Development Committee for the Library Publishing Coalition. Before coming to Penn State in 2017 and starting her library publishing career, Ally worked for a small publishing company in Hershey, PA for almost two years before moving to Philadelphia to work for SpringerNature (previously Springer Science+Business Media) as an Associate Editor for their Current Reports group, and oversaw the publication of 5 journals.
Statement: I began my library career at Penn State as the only full-time employee working on library publishing, as many of us do, and while publishing was not new to me, doing it in a library setting with far less staff and support around me compared to jobs in the industry was. I understood that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to learn from and surround myself with others in the library publishing community doing the work. The LPC community has filled that need so well, and I have been excited to dive into any opportunity to serve, communicate, and collaborate.
As a Board Member, I will continue to support the community that has supported me so well. I am interested in ways we can build on the benchmarking discussions, community calls, and mentorship discussions that have been established. Serving on, and now chairing, the Professional Development Committee has allowed me to help develop programming for knowledge sharing, such as the Mentorship Program, our forthcoming Library Publishing Competencies, and our recent community calls around publishing platforms and services. I am also interested in ways we can continue to expand our community and learn from others outside of our largely North American context. Finally, as a board member, I will be excited to help expand an ever-growing and evolving library publishing community, where librarians, staff, organizations, presses, and libraries are collaborating and working together to further the vision of publishing content that is open and available for all.
Chelsea Johnston, University of Florida
Bio: I’m relentlessly curious about the relationships between author, publisher, reader, and resource. I’ve been fortunate to explore these relationships throughout my career.
As an undergraduate, I interned at Counterpoise, an independent review journal of alternative presses. Embedded in the editorial process, I learned how publishers with limited resources can serve diverse readerships. I discovered how this could be scaled via structured workflows from my first job at Elsevier, where I managed projects from pre-proposal to post-publication. At local and global levels, I practiced the strategy and adaptability necessary to produce impactful content. Seeking other applications, I joined the University of South Florida Libraries as a Library Operations Coordinator. At USF, I supported open access publishing on Scholar Commons and earned my MLIS from the School of Information. My work and studies at USF gave me functional insight into library publishing. In April 2019, I joined the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida as the inaugural Scholarly Repository Librarian. At UF, I serve as the program lead for journal publishing on Florida Online Journals, manage publishing initiatives on the IR@UF (including a pilot print-on-demand program for ETDs), collaborate with the University Press of Florida, and scout projects for the LibraryPress@UF.
My success in these roles has been driven by my curiosity and passion for people and publishing. Learn more about my work at http://cjohnston.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/ and share yours with me on Twitter @ctjohnst.
Statement: It was challenging to move from the structure of traditional publishing to the unpredictability of library publishing. The Library Publishing Coalition—through its Directory, Forum, and wonderful community—helped me learn and excel on the job. Since then, the LPC has expanded to offer even more professional development opportunities, from the Peer Mentorship Program to the Library Publishing Curriculum. As a Board member, I would be committed to refining these opportunities so library-publishers at any level feel empowered to participate. Our community is flexible, generous, and determined, but also overcommitted, overwhelmed, and plagued by imposter syndrome. To encourage balance, I would prioritize organizing and making sense of the LPC community’s options for self-improvement, whether that takes the form of formal programs or informal partnerships.
My multifaceted publishing experiences have prepared me to support the LPC’s mission and activities. As an editor, I know how to anticipate the needs of an academic community, build projects, and execute them with practiced efficiency. As a publisher, I have an integrated understanding of the development and dissemination of resources. As a junior faculty member, I can help represent the needs and values of others who identify as early career. As your Board member, I would be honored to promote impactful, honest, and open resources that strengthen and sustain us. I love this work. I believe in our community. I want us to keep growing together. Thank you for your consideration.
Emma Molls, University of Minnesota
Bio: Emma Molls is the Publishing Services Librarian at the University of Minnesota. At Minnesota, Emma leads the Publishing Team in the publication of open access journals, monographs, and textbooks, and works collaboratively to expand the understanding and use of open publishing on campus. Emma is an associate editor at DOAJ, editorial board member for Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, member of Transitioning Society Publications to Open Access, and the co-recipient of LPC’s 2019 Award for Outstanding Scholarship.
Statement: As an employee of an LPC member institution, I have benefited many times from the expertise of other LPC members, and would continue to advocate for LPC’s current peer-to-peer learning opportunities, specifically for those related to the Ethical Framework. As a board member I would be interested in furthering partnerships and outreach that present library publishing as a quality, viable alternative to commercial publishers for scholarly societies. My past LPC involvement has included DOAJ Task Force, Outreach Subcommittee to the Board, and the Publication Award Task Force.
Dwayne K. Buttler, University of Louisville
Bio: Dwayne K. Buttler has served as the first Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair for Scholarly Communication at the University of Louisville since 2002 and is a Professor in University Libraries. Most of his teaching, work, and writing concentrates on copyright, licensing, digital technology, open access, 1st Amendment and related legal and policy concerns arising in teaching, learning, and scholarly communication. He earned BA in Telecommunications from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and a Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) degree from the Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis, returning to law school after working for over a decade as a video/filmmaker in documentary, advertising, and other media productions. The creative arts implicated myriad legal questions and foreshadowed the then nascent rise of now ubiquitous digital technologies. Dwayne also worked at the Copyright Management Center at IUPUI, which was one of the first library centered copyright and related policy efforts in the U.S. throughout the mid to late 1990’s, and has taught mass communication law at the University of Louisville since joining the library faculty in 2002. Dwayne has led many, many workshops, invited presentations, and discussions over the last two decades focusing on copyright, scholarly communication, and information policy for audiences of administrators, faculty, librarians, and scholars within the library and higher education communities nationally and internationally. He has also frequently participated in various studies and roundtables held by the U.S. Copyright Office since the late 1990s addressing issues of crucial importance to libraries and the future of copyright law.
Statement: As a long-time advocate for copyright reform and the rebalancing of the interests and power of libraries and scholars for reshaping the scholarly communication ecosystem, I am excited by the University of Louisville’s recent commitment to support the Library Publishing Coalition through UofL’s membership. As an attorney and policy wonk, I am particularly interested in the social and legal systems framing much of the work of libraries and related non-profit efforts arising in the library community, some of the them framed by my early work with the MetaArchive and Educopia in creating community foundations and the legal architecture for addressing digital archiving. I also would like to learn more about the various approaches across diverse institutions in their efforts to reframe scholarly communication and open access and in particular strategies for developing and extending communities of shared interest. Much of my career thus far has ultimately centered on revisiting, and often revising, the meaning of risk in the legal environment of libraries and user communities. My primary goal in the realm of open access is to simultaneously meet the needs of scholars in sharing the results of research and to identify and mitigate if necessary the real, and often times imagined, institutional risk of undertaking what is the responsible choice of public policy in making scholarship broadly accessible to all in the midst of a whirlwind of legal influences, digital challenges, strategic considerations, and funding limitations.
Jessica Kirschner, Virginia Commonwealth University
Bio: Jessica Kirschner is the Open Educational Resources Librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University. She leads the library’s Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative and supports faculty in the adoption, adaption, and creation of free course materials. Jessica’s career has been focused on publishing from the beginning, when she worked in the acquisitions department at SUNY Press. She then obtained her MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh while working in Pitt’s Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing, helping to support their open access journal publishing program. Jessica has also served as the Digital Publishing Librarian at Texas Tech University, where she developed an affordable, digital textbook publishing program and supported open access journals. She is currently the Assistant Editor for the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. She is the chair of the LPC’s Directory Committee and was awarded the 2019 LPC Award for Exemplary Service. She was a 2017 Society for Scholarly Publishing Fellow.
Statement: When I first became interested in library publishing, the Library Publishing Directory was a key resource introducing me to the field. When given the opportunity, I volunteered to serve on the Directory Committee to both assist with this invaluable resource and contribute to the equally important LPC community. I’ve since chaired the Directory Committee and Task Force, leading colleagues in 1) producing the Directory and corresponding survey and 2) evaluating the data model to ensure that the Directory accurately reflects the changing field and provides beneficial information for those both inside and outside LPC. We’ve also begun collaborating with the IFLA Library Publishing SIG, hoping to expand the global nature of the Directory.
My work on the Directory Committee has motivated me to serve on the LPC Board. Through my various publishing positions, I’ve supported open access journals and open educational resources, explored a variety of platforms, developed workflows, and advocated for universal access. Meanwhile, through the directory’s data model work, I’ve gained a birdseye view of the varied and continually changing field. I would like the LPC Board to continue to foster the collaborative community at the heart of LPC while growing support, developing resources, and establishing partnerships for the increasing number of services, publications types, and processes LPC members are undertaking. I also envision LPC’s continued exploration into its role within the global library publishing community, evaluating if and how we can contribute, as we’re beginning to do through the SIG partnership.