The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is excited to announce the recipients of the 2021 Publishing Practice Awards! Congratulations to the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries – Mavs Open Press for exemplary work in the category of Accessibility, and to the University of Cape Town Libraries for exemplary work in the category of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
The Publishing Practice Awards are designed to recognize and raise awareness of effective and sustainable library publishing practices. They highlight library publishing programs that exemplify concepts advanced in LPC’s An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing and in LPC’s Values statement. While a representative publication is acknowledged, the focus of these awards is not on the publication’s content, but rather on the process of publishing the piece. The inaugural award categories for 2021 are Accessibility and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
University of Texas at Arlington Libraries – Mavs Open Press won the award for Accessibility for their publication, Applied Fluid Mechanics Lab Manual. Mavs Open Press used the publishing process to pilot new and exemplary accessibility workflows. To learn more about how Mavs Open Press created training programs, implemented accessibility checks, and developed an accessibility statement and workflow to publish an exemplary open educational resource, read their Award announcement blog post.
The University of Cape Town Libraries is the recipient of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award for their work Constitutional Law for Students. The process of publishing this work used exemplary practices and processes to advance the libraries’ goal of contributing to the deconstruction of decades of legislated inequalities entrenched in the system of apartheid. Learn more about University of Cape Town’s Libraries’ mission to advance a social justice driven library publishing programme via their Award announcement blog post.
Applications were evaluated by the LPC Publishing Practice Awards Committee in a competitive selection process. Guest judges Stephanie Rosen (Accessibility Strategist & Librarian for Disability Studies at the University of Michigan Library) and Charlotte Roh (Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of San Francisco) provided subject matter expertise to the Publishing Practice Awards committee on the topics of Accessibility and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The applications from the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries – Mavs Open Press and the University of Cape Town Libraries demonstrated exemplary practices in the process of publishing a piece of work that foregrounded important publishing principles.
If you are interested in learning more about LPC’s Publishing Practice Awards, please visit the awards website. The next opportunity to apply for a Publishing Practice Award will open in the fall of 2021.
Congratulations once again to the winners of the 2021 LPC Publishing Practice Awards!