Topic description
While many library publishers focus on publishing traditional forms of scholarship such as journals, monographs, textbooks, and theses, some have found their niche in supporting non-traditional research outputs that do not align with the interests, goals, or capacities of established scholarly publishers (Lippincott, 2017). These non-traditional outputs may include multimedia digital projects that require flexibility that traditional publishers cannot offer, or digital supplements to traditional publications, such as data sets, digitized primary source materials, or GIS projects. But while there may be a shared intuitive understanding of what makes a research output non-traditional, an examination of the concept may reveal a number of distinctions. By conducting research on the expression of non-traditional scholarly outputs, and the needs of their authors, library publishers can better understand the diverse forms that these outputs take, and avoid imposing a one-size-fits-all framework that could result in privileging some formats or creators over others.
Non-traditional outputs may not take the form of traditional research publications. While journal articles, reviews, and monographs are paradigmatic cases of traditional research (even in their digital forms), many digital projects straddle the boundaries between commonly accepted categories of research products, if they fit any of them at all. The publishing of datasets, multimedia, interactive digital experiences, websites, and others, may also require infrastructure that is not otherwise provided through traditional publication platforms or workflows. Library publishers may need to be aware of the complexities of handling different forms of publication workflows that may not otherwise fit, if accepting new forms of scholarship.
Non-traditional research outputs may also encounter additional skepticism compared to established academy norms, presenting problems for evaluation and recognition of these works as valid scholarship. Lack of coordinated indexing services or citation evaluation for these non-traditional outputs may contribute to this problem. Library publishers wishing to support forms of non-traditional outputs must know more about how to contextualize and advocate for these works as forms of scholarship so as to contribute to negotiations of inclusion in tenure, promotion, graduation, or other evaluation criteria. This has already been encountered by publishers in the fight for OA acceptance, which may provide avenues for emulation.
Likewise, differing or unclear description standards for the myriad forms these outputs might take may contribute to a lack of acceptance or understanding of the scholarly labor that these projects require. Digital publications such as continuously-updated websites, digital exhibits, or interactive media may present problems as a publication date does not capture the continued and ongoing support work project teams are required to provide. Library publishers must be aware of continued commitments when accepting these publication projects, as well as advocating for the accurate recognition of their gravity in evaluation, wherever possible.
Therefore, additional research in this area of scholarship is needed for a variety of reasons. Because presentation and mode of delivery often serve as proxies for quality, library publishers need to develop norms and best practices for the packaging of and discussing non-traditional research outputs, much the same way that these norms have been established for traditional research, so as to advocate from the best-possible positioning. This will also allow library publishers to continue developing reputations as legitimate publishing venues for these outputs. Finally, a more thorough understanding of the different dimensions of non-traditional research outputs will help libraries and other institutions develop best practices for their evaluation, dissemination, and preservation.
Research questions
- What disparities exist in the tenure process for white researchers and researchers of color? How might these disparities impact engagement with publication methods potentially deemed to be riskier, such as OA or non-traditional outputs?
- As library publishing moves beyond publishing journals and books, what do we need to know?
- What types of non-traditional research outputs are libraries publishing, and what does “publishing” mean when it comes to non-traditional research outputs?
- What are best practices for publishing different types of research outputs?
- What is the role of the institutional repository as a place for non-traditional research outputs?
- How can publishers correct disparities in whose voices are represented in the authorship and topics of non-traditional research outputs?
Relevant resources
Brown, L., Griffiths, R., Rascoff, M., & Guthrie, K. (2007). University publishing in a digital age. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0010.301
Carbajal, Itza. (2021). Historical metadata debt: Confronting colonial and racist legacies through a post-custodial metadata praxis. Across the disciplines, 18(1/2): 1-15. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/atd/volume18/Carbajal.pdf
Esposito, J. (2015, September 14). What is “publishing” if even a library can do it? The Scholarly Kitchen. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/09/14/what-is-publishing-if-even-a-library-can-do-it/
McPherson, T. (2012). Why are the digital humanities so white? Or thinking the histories of race and computation. Debates in the digital humanities, 1, 139-60. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816677948.003.0017
Whyte Appleby, J., Hatherill, J., Kosavic, A., & Meijer-Kline, K. (2018). What’s in a name? Exploring identity in the field of library journal publishing. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 6 (1), eP2209. https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2209