This post is part of a running series on the Library Publishing Workflows (LPW) project, which is investigating and modeling journal publishing workflows in libraries. LPW is a collaboration between the Library Publishing Coalition, Educopia Institute, and twelve partner libraries, and is generously funded by an Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant. See all posts in the series.
One of the key goals of Library Publishing Workflows is capturing a diversity of workflows from different types of institutions with different goals and methods. We want to introduce each of the libraries and their project representatives, who will be working with us over the next two years to document, analyze, and share the publishing workflow(s) they are employing.
University of Alberta Library
Based in Edmonton, Canada, the University of Alberta Library supports open, sustainable, and responsible models for ensuring a healthy and robust scholarly communications ecosystem. We hope that our participation in this project will enable us to contribute meaningfully to a shared understanding of common workflows, best practices, and documentation to help libraries demonstrate viable models for community owned, scholar-driven academic publishing.
Sonya Betz, Head of Library Publishing and Digital Production Services, has been working with the UofA’s open publishing program since 2015.
Robert W. Woodruff Library (Atlanta University Center)
Established in 1982, the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Robert W. Woodruff Library serves the nation’s largest consortium of historically black colleges and universities, which includes Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. AUC Woodruff Library is involved in this project to capture and refine our current workflow(s) and learn how we can improve our library publishing services as we grow and adopt new publishing platforms.
The main library representative for this project is Josh Hogan, Assistant Head of Digital Services, who is heavily involved with assisting current journal editors and staff as well as reaching out to potential new journals in the AUC community.
California Digital Library
California Digital Library provides open access publishing services to faculty, researchers, staff and students throughout the University of California system via its eScholarship platform. In order to better serve our publishing partners and to guide our development of technical platforms to support OA publishing, CDL wishes to update our understanding of common practices and workflows in academic publishing and contribute our own publishing partners’ perspectives to the project.
Justin Gonder is the Senior Product Manager for Publishing at California Digital Library.
Claremont Colleges Library
The Claremont Colleges Library supports seven institutions comprising The Claremont Colleges consortium, and provides students, faculty, and staff of The Claremont Colleges access to over 2.1 million resources in a variety of formats. The Claremont Colleges Library has hosted a variety of Open Access Journals for almost a decade, and thus we are interested in understanding and supporting openly accessible ways of publishing, and contributing that knowledge to the greater community.
Jennifer Beamer is the Scholarly Communication Librarian. She is passionate about Open Access, Open Educational Resources and Open Science.
Columbia Libraries
Columbia University Libraries build, sustain, and make discoverable collections that transcend traditional boundaries of format and domain, keeping pace with a dynamic and rapidly evolving information environment and creating unique opportunities for users to encounter global thought. As vital partners in the University’s research and learning ecosystem, the Libraries connects users with rich and distinctive collections, fosters meaningful learning experiences, and provides innovative research support for a large, diverse user population. Columbia University Libraries believes library publishing offers real potential to intervene in a broken academic publishing system, helping scholars who want to ask new questions of their communities, play at the borders of currently canonized fields, open new pathways of inquiry, explore innovative methods, and include new and traditionally underrepresented voices in the scholarly conversation. But in order to intervene sustainably and effectively, it needs to professionalize. We think this project will help ensure that library publishers are thinking systematically about issues such as sustainability, accessibility, discoverability, and marketing while continuing to innovate and diversify.
Nicky Agate, Assistant Director for Scholarly Communication and Projects, is the Columbia U representative on the Workflows project.
Michelle Wilson is the Digital Publishing Librarian at Columbia University Libraries where she runs our open access journal publishing program as well as piloting innovative projects in podcasting, digital exhibitions, and digital monographs through collaborations with students and faculty.
Ames Library (Illinois Wesleyan University)
The Ames Library is a center for engaged teaching, learning, and scholarship at Illinois Wesleyan University and a space designed to be welcoming to all members of our diverse campus community, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, community partners, and guests. Our involvement in the Library Publishing Workflows project stems from a firm belief that collaboration across a diversity of institutions and partners yields progress for the community, and that it is critical for any discussion of library publishing to include its potential for educating students as content creators (and future scholars).
Stephanie Davis-Kahl, our representative, will bring her experience with working with undergraduate research programs – including journals, poster presentations, and other media – as well as faculty mentors, student editors, and other campus partners, to the project.
University of Michigan Library
The University of Michigan Library supports, enhances, and collaborates in the instructional, research, and service activities of the faculty, students, and staff of the University of Michigan, and contributes to the common good by collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, sharing, and creating the record of human knowledge. Having published open access journals through our library for more than 15 years, we have experimented with a variety of workflows, technologies, and staff configurations – none of which are perfect, but we are eager to share lessons learned with the LPC community with an eye to improvement.
Jason Colman is Senior Associate Librarian and Director of Publishing Services at Michigan Publishing, where he oversees the publication of over 30 open access journals and 35 books per year across a wide range of disciplines.
Pacific University Libraries
Pacific University Libraries serve undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty on all four campuses. I’m excited to share what I’ve learned about publishing workflows as well as to learn from others so that I can make improvements to Pacific’s publication process.
Johanna Meetz is the Scholarly Communication & Publishing Services Librarian as well as the Associate Director of Pacific University Press.
The University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh
The University Library System, University of Pittsburgh is committed to helping research communities share knowledge and ideas through open and responsible collaboration. Through our participation in the Library Publishing Workflows project, the University Library System at Pitt will build on and improve our own internal documentation to support our publishing activities and contribute to the library publishing community’s resources, which aligns with our program’s mission.
Vanessa Gabler is the Electronic Publications Manager for the ULS E-Journal Publishing Program.
Armacost Library (University of Redlands)
The Armacost Library supports the teaching, research and learning goals of the University of Redlands by providing access to information, promoting lifelong learning, and supporting the creation and creators of scholarly and creative works. As a library publisher of one scholarly journal, the Armacost Library hopes that participation in Library Publishing Workflows will encourage and strengthen fellow nascent endeavors.
This work is led by Paige Mann, Scholarly Communications Librarian and STEM Librarian.
University Libraries at Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech Publishing is committed to production and communication of open access scholarship using methodologies and formats that are well suited to the 21st century. We’re eager to learn from the work of others in this area, as well as share our own experience.
Robert Browder‘s work focuses on managing resources and workflows associated with publishing online open access scholarly journals and books.
Wayne State University Libraries
Comprising six campus libraries and the School of Information Sciences, Wayne State University Libraries serve as a national model for a research University with an urban teaching and service mission. Our Digital Publishing Unit anticipates contributing to the project by offering a candid look at workflows originally developed outside of the professional publishing sphere.
Joshua Neds-Fox, Coordinator for Digital Publishing in the Wayne State University Libraries and former Board Member for the Library Publishing Coalition, will serve as representative to the project.