Posts by Melanie Schlosser

July 9, 2018

Digital Publishing Your Way: Moving Toward Multimodal, Flexible Platforms

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Sarah Wipperman, University of Pennsylvania. This is part of a series of reflections by community members on the recent Library Publishing Forum. See the whole series. 

The 2018 Library Publishing Forum preconference, Owned by the Academy, gave participants a chance to learn more about publishing platforms that have a commitment to community-owned infrastructure. Elsevier’s 2017 acquisition of bepress put a spotlight on this issue, so, for many, including myself, this preconference was a welcomed chance to explore both well-established and up-and-coming open source publishing alternatives.

Publishing platforms can be a place where libraries do research and development, finding new partnerships and collaboration opportunities, working with new types of scholarship and methods, and experimenting with new technologies. I thus found the most exciting takeaway from this preconference to be the possibilities of new (and continued) development in open source publishing. Many of these communities are thinking more actively about non-traditional forms of scholarship, multimodal scholarship, and other ways in which academia is embracing, incorporating, and sharing new expressions of scholarship. Many platforms are also emphasizing sustainability and trying to provide multiple ways of engaging in these systems, including options for assisted setup and/or hosting. While no platform is “perfect” (as if such a thing exists), progress towards the next wave of scholarly needs is tangible.

“We all have different services we provide to meet needs on campus, so I find it equally important to have tools that can support us as needs, workflows, and services change. Platforms should support people-based services, not dictate or confine what those services should be.”

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July 5, 2018

What’s it like to be the local host of the Library Publishing Forum?

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Editor’s note: This is part of a series of reflections by community members on the recent Library Publishing Forum. See the whole series. This post is guest written by Kate McCready and Laureen Boutang, from the University of Minnesota Libraries. 

When we first considered the idea of hosting the Library Publishing Forum at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, we were very excited about the opportunities that could come from being a local host. We saw it as a way to strengthen our relationship with the Library Publishing Coalition, and support the work of the library publishing community. We also hoped that bringing the events to campus would allow our U of MN colleagues to have the opportunity to learn more about library publishing in general, and our program specifically. We thought it would build understanding about why our institution was devoting resources to scholarly publishing activities. Of course, we also wanted a meaningful conference for those attending! All of these hopes were realized and we learned a lot about bringing an event to campus as well.  

As we dove into thinking about logistics and providing on-the-ground knowledge of the location, we realized that for our hopes to succeed, we had a lot of work to do. There were many details that would need our attention if the Forum and affiliated events were to run smoothly. Looking back at our work preparing for the Forum over the last year, it can be loosely categorized in four areas. First, we needed to gain buy-in at our home institution at many levels. Second, we had to work with many constituents (local colleagues, program committee colleagues, event staff, LPC colleagues, etc.) to determine the priorities and requirements for the events. Third, while the Forum is a self-supporting conference and the Library Publishing Coalition provides financial and logistical resources for it, we worked to provide additional local staffing and financial resources to support our priorities as the host institution. Finally, we spent time to get and stay organized. (more…)

July 2, 2018

Call for proposals to host the 2020 Library Publishing Forum

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We are currently accepting proposals from LPC members to host the 2020 Library Publishing Forum. The Forum typically welcomes 150-200 guests for 3 days of preconference and conference activities. The LPC aims to hold the Forum in a variety of attractive locations throughout North America that provide convenient access for our members through geographic proximity or easily accessible transportation. The LPC seeks an institution willing to act as a partner in providing access to library-owned spaces, or co-signing contracts for spaces at reduced costs. The call is open through August 31, 2018.

Host responsibilities

The Forum is financed through conference registration fees and sponsor support, and the Educopia Institute will handle all conference planning and logistics. The host institution is not required to provide additional financial support. However, local organizers should provide referrals to appropriate venues for the main conference activities, pre- and post- events, and hotel stays. The host institution should also plan to have a staff member serve as the Host Liaison on the Program Committee. The Host Liaison has a one-year, non-voting role, and is invited to attend committee meetings, but is not obligated to undertake more general committee work. In addition, we welcome support from local hosts in planning a reception and coordinating appropriate social events. (more…)

June 11, 2018

Challenges and opportunities (but mostly opportunities) for open source infrastructure in library publishing

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Editor’s note: This is part of a series of reflections by community members on the recent Library Publishing Forum. See the whole series. This post is guest written by Alison McGonagle-O’Connell, Editoria Community Manager and Owned by the Academy presenter. 

As a first-time Library Publishing Forum attendee, presenter, and a participant in the “Owned by the Academy” pre-meeting, I was struck by how truly welcoming and collaborative this group is! These meetings also provided me with a few key takeaways:

  1. Open Source (OS) publishing technologies are proliferating, and are of increasing interest to the broader library publishing community.
  2. These tools and platforms represent one way for the community to reclaim some control of the scholarly communication marketplace.
  3. Hosted service models for OS tools will be necessary for some to take the leap from commercial products.
  4. OS providers need to work together to ensure interoperability, and to effectively map tool capabilities to the unique needs and requirements of the community

The first two takeaways are general observations, largely supported by those who attended, tweeted, and have subsequently discussed the meetings openly. OS technology gives organizations the ability to design and customize platforms to support their own needs and values. There is significant freedom in not being locked in to a commercial solution’s unalterable roadmap. Want to design accessibility into the platform with your user community? Go ahead! Concerned about security? Need support for interactive images including integration with data sets? Want to support multiple languages? Done. Nothing is off the table with this kind of community-driven and -supported infrastructure. (more…)

June 8, 2018

From services to access: Reflections of a first-time Forum attendee

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Editor’s note: This is part of a series of reflections by community members on the recent Library Publishing Forum. See the whole series. This post is guest written by Talea Anderson, Scholarly Communication Librarian at Washington State University and recipient of a Library Publishing Forum First-Time Attendee Scholarship. 

In May I attended my first Library Publishing Forum with support kindly provided by LPC. The conference was filled with meaningful experiences for me. I’d mention in particular the time I was able to spend with the editorial staff of Kairos as part of KairosCamp and the opportunity I had later in the week to participate in the first pilot of the Library Publishing Curriculum. I manage a small, service-focused scholarly communication program at Washington State University, and these two workshops provided a glimpse of the editorial services that help keep journals running. On my campus, we are currently moving forward with supporting faculty who would like to create and publish open educational resources and I came away with a better understanding of the kinds of needs these faculty members may have when it comes to preparing, editing, and publishing their work.

These workshops were a great introduction to editorial work and publishing services, but for me the most meaningful part of LPF came on the first day when Catherine Kudlick spoke about web accessibility (slides coming soon). Kudlick invited us as library publishers to build accessibility into our workflows from the start, and to see this work not as punitive but as a service to all people, including disabled communities. This message is certainly important but I connected to it on an unexpectedly personal level. I learned, on introducing myself to Kudlick after her keynote, that we share the same eye condition and face similar challenges when it comes to doing things like presenting to audiences and reading texts on mobile devices. I rarely encounter others who can relate to the way I see—it’s rarer still to find people in academia who cope with vision loss while engaging with publishing and scholarly communication. The brief chat I had with Kudlick was, to say the least, a special opportunity for me. In the end, thanks in part to this encounter, I came away from LPF feeling inspired to continue improving access to information for everyone, including people like me and Kudlick and many others who benefit from inclusive publishing practices.

Talea Anderson
Scholarly Communication Librarian
Washington State University

June 7, 2018

Library publishing services visualized

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Have you ever asked yourself, “What do library publishers actually DO, and can I see it represented in the form of a word cloud?” If so, you’re in luck! I was mucking around with data from the 2018 Library Publishing Directory in support of a project the Professional Development Committee is working on when it occurred to me that it would make a great word cloud. Just for fun, here is a visual representation of more than 100 libraries’ answers to the question, “Which of these additional services does your library offer in support of library publishing activities?”

created at TagCrowd.com

May 16, 2018

Watch the livestream of the Library Publishing Forum

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For the second time, we will be livestreaming portions of the Library Publishing Forum (5/22-23)! You can see which sessions will be streamed on the Program Page (look for the little camera icon next to the presentation title). All streaming will be done via LPC’s Twitter account and will be shared via the conference hastag: #LPForum18. Can’t watch the stream live? Links to the recordings will be added to the program after the conference.

A BIG “thank you” to our Forum livestreaming volunteers: Lauren Collister (University of Pittsburgh), Sean Crowe (University of Cincinnati), Kevin Hawkins (University of North Texas), and Jody Bailey (University of Texas at Arlington). We couldn’t do it without you!

We will also be streaming the plenary sessions at Owned by the Academy: A Preconference on Open Source Publishing Software, so make sure to tune in on 5/21 starting at 8:30am CDT. Access to the livestream of the preconference will be via LPC’s Twitter account and the preconference hashtag: #OwnedByTheAcademy.