Elections for the Library Publishing Coalition Board open today and will continue through Wednesday, March 28th. The candidates are:
- Jody Bailey, University of Texas at Arlington
- Brad Eden, Valparaiso University
- Vanessa Gabler, University of Pittsburgh
- Ted Polley, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
- Scott Warren, Syracuse University
- Mary Beth Weber, Rutgers University
Each candidate has provided a brief biography and an election statement:
Jody Bailey, University of Texas at Arlington
Bio: In 2008, I received my Master of Library and Information Science from Wayne State University and have been working since February 2009 at the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. I started as a reference and instruction librarian in the humanities disciplines and in July 2013 became the department head for Arts and Humanities Outreach and Scholarship. In September 2014, I became director of grants and research, and in January 2016, I moved into the newly created director of publishing position where I lead efforts in open access digital publishing for the UTA Mavs Open Press and also administer the Go Open Fund, which supports UTA scholars who wish to publish in fully open access journals that have article-processing charges. Another important part of my work is supervising our open education librarian and collaborating with her to promote and publish open educational resources. My professional interests include open access publishing, open educational resources, user-centered library services, and outreach activities. I obtained my Bachelor of Arts in English literature from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and my Master of Arts in linguistics from Louisiana State University, where I also completed the coursework for a doctorate in rhetoric. In my first career, I worked as a writing instructor for five years at LSU and Virginia Tech and then spent ten years as a technical, production, and copy editor of academic books and journal articles, mostly for the American Psychological Association.
Statement: The UTA Libraries is a relatively new member of the Library Publishing Coalition, and my involvement in LPC is also not lengthy, but in the past few years I have seen the impact such a vibrant, helpful community can have. Many professionals working in library publishing do so alone or perhaps lead a small team operating on a shoestring budget. Thus for me, the LPC’s main role is to serve as a networking hub connecting people who work at disparate, often geographically dispersed institutions. These connections can be a virtual infrastructure for coalition members to obtain knowledgeable advice and further their professional development. My interest in LPC Board service stems from my wish to give back to the organization from which I’ve learned so much and help it continue to perform the services I’ve found incredibly valuable. Before becoming a librarian, I worked for a decade in journals publishing and now have almost a decade of experience as a librarian and two years of experience as director of a library publishing program. Additionally, five years as a leadership team member at UTA Libraries has given me the opportunity to hone my skills in strategic planning and project management. These experiences have helped me build a solid foundation to become a servant leader for our LPC community, and I hope to have the privilege to become a member of the LPC Board, represent the interests of our membership, and improve the educational and networking opportunities for all involved in LPC.
Brad Eden, Valparaiso University
Bio: Bradford Lee Eden is Dean of Library Services at Valparaiso University. He has a masters and Ph.D. degrees in musicology, as well as an MS in library science. His recent books include Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien (McFarland, 2010); The Associate University Librarian Handbook: A Resource Guide (Scarecrow Press, 2012); Leadership in Academic Libraries: Connecting Theory to Practice (Scarecrow Press, 2014), The Hobbit and Tolkien’s Mythology: Essays on Revisions and Influences (McFarland, 2014), and the ten-volume series Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015-17). He served as president of the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) in 2015-16. He is also editor of the Journal of Tolkien Research, an online peer-reviewed journal available at http://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch.
Statement: I am interested in serving on the LPC Board again, as the issues surrounding scholarly communication have been an intense interest of mine, both as a scholar and a library director. I have also been a strong advocate for libraries as publishers, given that we are there at the beginning of the process (researching, information creation) and at the end of the scholarly process (buying access, long-term preservation); it makes sense that we also support and facilitate the peer review process; current technology allows libraries to significantly curtail and provide alternatives to the current financial unsustainability of the scholarly process. I served on the LPC Board previously from 2013-16, and as LPC President from 2015-16.
Vanessa Gabler, University of Pittsburgh
Bio: As the Electronic Publications Manager for the University Library System (ULS) at the University of Pittsburgh for the past 8 years, I work closely with our independent editorial teams to produce high-quality publications and continue to develop and strengthen our program in the ever-changing publishing ecosystem in the interest of our mission as an academic research library and to meet the needs of our partners. Prior to joining Pitt, I worked for scholarly society journals in both editorial and production roles.
The ULS publishes more than 35 scholarly peer-reviewed online journals and provides a hosting service to about an additional 35 journals with the mission of promoting Open Access to scholarly research. As part of the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing, we also support a variety of programs to promote access to scholarly research output including an institutional repository and subject-based repositories, the Author Fee Fund, measures of scholarly impact, copyright advice, and other issues related to scholarly communication.
Statement: I would like to share our experiences, program strategies, and lessons learned with the LPC Board and to guide the LPC’s future efforts to promote the dissemination of scholarly research. By sharing information and learning from one another, the LPC helps its members develop efficient, high-quality publishing services to serve a range of community needs and organizational goals. The ULS at Pitt is dedicated to its publishing program and views the LPC as being essential to our success and the success of other programs like it.
Ted Polley, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Bio: Ted Polley is the Social Sciences and Digital Publishing Librarian at IUPUI University Library. In this role, he oversees the Open Access Journals at IUPUI publishing service, which hosts and provides support to sixteen journals on the Open Journal Systems platform. He has worked in library publishing since 2015. Ted has been actively involved in the Library Publishing Coalition since 2016 and is currently serving as the Chair of the LPC Research Committee.
Statement: I am interested in serving on the LPC Board to further my involvement in helping to support and set the direction for a community of practice that contributes so much to my day-to-day work. I have served as a member of the LPC Research Committee, and currently serve as its chair. In this role, I have experience establishing projects and ensuring that the committee makes progress toward its goals. As a board member, I would like to explore ways LPC can actively support or coordinate the support for the development of an open scholarly commons.
Scott Warren, Syracuse University
Bio: Scott Warren is the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship at Syracuse University Libraries, where he guides collections, open publishing, research data, and liaison librarian services. He was a member of the 2016-2017 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Leadership Fellows Program. Earlier positions included Head of Collections at Syracuse and Associate Director of the Textiles Library and Engineering Services at the North Carolina State University Libraries, where he began his career as a Library Fellow.
Statement: The Library Publishing Coalition has been a transformative development for all libraries. Such collective engagement is the only way we can truly transform scholarly communication. However, growing strategically requires sensitivity towards enabling innovative services, carefully reviewing alternative directions given goals, mission, and available resources, and listening to the needs of members. It also means beginning to think in a longer-range timeframe.
As events within the library-publishing world over the past year have shown, library publishing has matured to the point where it is a complex, multi-faceted community with diverse perspectives – which is a good thing! However, navigating the options now open to us and understanding the nuanced perspectives on library publishing that they reflect will require us all to engage in substantive discussion with one another. I was extremely impressed by how the current Board led the LPC community earlier this year in a thoughtful reflection on several difficult questions regarding our collective identity and believe the next few years will be similarly crucial as the organization charts its course. As a Board member, I would be particularly interested in helping drive ongoing collaboration between the LPC and allied organizations in a manner that best reflects the values of the membership while enhancing scalable, sustainable solutions and outcomes for members. My perspective would be that of the many libraries modestly engaged in open publishing that desire to play a more active role in fostering a community that amplifies our individual efforts.
Mary Beth Weber, Rutgers University
Bio: Mary Beth Weber is the Head of Central Technical Services at Rutgers University Libraries and oversees acquisitions (print, electronic, music scores and recordings, and media) and resource description (MARC and non-MARC) for the eighteen libraries within the system. She has held progressively responsible positions at Rutgers, starting as the nonprint catalog librarian and becoming the Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services prior to her current position.
Weber is the editor of Library Resources and Technical Services (LRTS), the official scholarly journal of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association, and has served in this capacity since 2012. LRTS is a green open access journal. She is developing a gold OA supplement to LRTS for peer-reviewed and accepted literature reviews. Weber has also served on the editorial board of LIBRES, an international gold OA LIS journal, since its inception in 1993. Additionally, she served on the editorial board of MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship, an early electronic LIS journal.
Weber is very familiar with the scholarly publishing process, and her activities include mentoring early career librarians who are new to the research and publication process. She is an active member of ALCTS, serves on the division’s Publications Committee, and also edited the division’s online newsletter for six years. Weber is the author of five books and peer-reviewed journal articles.
Statement: I welcome the opportunity to help shape policies for library publishing practices and serving on the LPC’s board is a logical next step for me as an author and editor of an LIS research journal. I have twenty-five years of experience serving on the editorial boards of LIS journals, and six as a journal editor. I bring publishing and mentoring experience as I have assisted individuals with the publishing process and have also participated in decisions regarding the publication and distribution of Library Resources and Technical Services, the journal that I edit. I have name recognition within the profession and a respected reputation as an editor.
I have experience with and knowledge of different publishing models and am aware of trends in scholarly communication. The expertise I have gained from working at a major research institution will be a benefit that I bring to LPC’s board if elected. My experience with ALCTS will be a plus as LPC partners with other professional organizations.
If elected to the board, I would promote an awareness of the role of library publishing and would like work with LPC to enable libraries as publishers. Digital scholarship is becoming increasingly important and I would like to focus on this area as well.