Elections for the Library Publishing Coalition Board open today and will continue through Friday, March 1. Instructions for voting will be sent to each member institution’s voting representative. This year there are five openings for 3-year terms. The candidates are: (more…)
[Updated 24 June 2024 to add the short version of the policy at the end of this post.]
LPC’s goal for the 2024 Library Publishing Forum is to encourage the safest possible in-person conference environment through careful planning and mutual care.
Although public concern has waned, COVID-19 is still a serious health risk. Even otherwise healthy individuals are at risk for complications and for long COVID, and those risks increase with repeated infections. For individuals with weakened immune systems or other vulnerabilities, the risks are heightened significantly.
We acknowledge that an in-person event will inevitably carry a higher level of risk than a virtual one, and that even the most careful precautions may not reduce the risk enough for some community members to attend safely. For that and other reasons, we will continue to alternate in-person events with fully virtual ones.
Our planning team is working to create the safest possible conference environment through attention to the following areas:
McNamara Alumni Center was built to meet the codes that prevailed at that time. The original design of the system dictates maximum MERV capabilities, which currently is use of a MERV 13 air filter. Air changes depend on the number of people and the pressure in the building. Spring and fall typically have the highest percentage of outside air in comparison to the coldest or hottest days of the year that the minimum air requirements were designed for.
Because we are planning for a lower number of attendees than the space typically accommodates, we can have fewer tables and ask to have them spread out. Boxed lunches will be provided on both days, so attendees can choose to take their lunch elsewhere. There are about 12-15 small tables located outside the Alumni Center on a first-come first-served basis. Because meals will take place in the same location as the main conference session, risk of transmission will be heightened at sessions immediately following meal and snack times
We will provide masks and rapid COVID self-tests for all attendees.
We encourage attendees and potential attendees to reach out to us with questions and concerns by emailing contact@librarypublishing.org
Mutual care will help provide a safer conference environment. Below, we have laid out a number of strategies for mutual care and we encourage attendees to utilize as many of them as possible. We aren’t mandating particular strategies across the board, because there will be community members for whom any particular intervention isn’t possible (e.g., individuals who cannot be vaccinated or who cannot wear a mask for an extended period of time). However, attendees are encouraged to do as many of these things as they are able and to do their best to care for their fellow conference-goers. Individuals are expected to isolate from other attendees if they are sick.
We will strongly encourage all attendees to receive up-to-date vaccines against COVID at least two weeks prior to the event. According to the CDC (at the time this policy was written), you’re up to date on your COVID vaccine if you received an updated vaccine after September 12, 2023.
We strongly encourage attendees to wear masks whenever possible. We will make medical-grade masks (KN95 or similar) available throughout the event, and we encourage all attendees who are able to wear them whenever they aren’t eating, drinking, or presenting.
The venue is part of the UMN campus, and it will include staff, attendees of other events, and potentially members of the public who may or may not be masked.
Although rapid COVID self-tests are not currently a reliable indicator of whether someone is infected (because of the prevalence of false negative results), they are a fairly reliable indicator of whether an individual is contagious on the day they take the test.(1) We will make tests available (one per attendee per day of the conference) and encourage all attendees to test each morning before coming to the venue. Further information will be posted and/or sent to attendees when available.
Individuals who test positive or who are experiencing any moderate or severe symptoms of COVID are expected to isolate from other attendees. This means not attending conference sessions in person, and not gathering for social events with other attendees during the conference.
This policy was designed based on conditions during early 2024. We are posting it in advance of the conference so that attendees can make an informed decision about their attendance, and we won’t make changes to it lightly. However, this policy is subject to change based on national trends and/or in accordance with CDC updates to guidelines and regulations. We will notify attendees of any changes as soon as possible.
Questions about this policy? Please email contact@librarypublishing.org.
(1) Lopera TJ, Alzate-Ángel JC, Díaz FJ, Rugeles MT, Aguilar-Jiménez W. The Usefulness of Antigen Testing in Predicting Contagiousness in COVID-19. Microbiol Spectr. 2022 Apr 27;10(2):e0196221. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.01962-21. Epub 2022 Mar 29. PMID: 35348350; PMCID: PMC9045251. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35348350/
LPC’s goal for the 2024 Library Publishing Forum is to encourage the safest possible in-person conference environment through careful planning and mutual care.
COVID remains a serious health risk, especially for those with weakened immune systems or other vulnerabilities. Because of these risks, we feel that precautions for in-person gatherings are warranted.
Some of the precautions LPC is taking include:
Please see the full COVID Policy for more details on the venue, scheduling, ventilation, and other COVID-related guidance.
An in-person event will inevitably carry a higher level of risk than a virtual one. For that and other reasons, we will continue to alternate in-person events with fully virtual ones.
What would happen if you won the lottery and could leave your job tomorrow? What information would the next person doing your job need to have? What information would you leave behind to help that person pick up where you leave off?: Documentation!
Documentation is important because it helps to preserve institutional memory, allows future you to get up to speed, and can be a useful resource to share with colleagues. Yet this important activity is often neglected. Whether you’re not sure where to begin or because we’re all faced with perennial deadlines and constant day-to-day tasks, documentation all too often falls to the bottom of our to-do lists. To give everyone a chance to focus on documentation, the Professional Development Committee is hosting its fourth-annual Documentation Month this February!
To support the community in creating documentation, members of LPC’s Professional Development Committee have created a Library Publishing Documentation Toolkit. It consists of four sections: Getting started with documentation, Planning a documentation day, Suggested documentation projects to tackle, and Sharing documentation beyond your institution. The toolkit is available in PDF and as a Google Doc.
We will also be hosting a series of workshops/community calls focused on the theme of documentation and accessibility. We have four calls planned for four Thursdays in February:
Scheduling information and call details for these events will be sent out each week to the listserv. Please feel free to share widely within your institution, but these calls are open to LPC member libraries only, so please do not share outside the community.
Happy documenting!
From the Documentation Month planning group (Erin Jerome, Adam Mazel, and Matt Vaughn) on behalf of the LPC Professional Development Committee.
LPC is excited to announce the publication of our new Community Plan, which will guide our activities from 2024 to 2029. Based on deep engagement with the community over the last year, this brief document centers on four areas of focus:
The plan also includes a set of “Principles of Action,” which, used alongside our Vision, Mission, and Values, will help us translate this flexible guidance into concrete action plans as needed.
Many thanks to our Board for their vision and writing, to LPC’s staff for guiding and supporting the process, to the LPC community for contributing the raw material for the plan, and to Kelly Pendergrast for the design.
Here’s to the next five years of community!
Please join us in welcoming William & Mary as a new member of the Library Publishing Coalition! The voting rep for William and Mary is Rosie Liljenquist.
About William and Mary:
William & Mary is a premier public research university. As one of eight “Public Ivy” institutions and as the second oldest college of higher education in the nation, W&M has a long and proud history of excellence in education, innovation, and research. William & Mary Libraries is excited to venture into more specialized publishing support for faculty/researchers including creating open monographs, hosting journals, supporting digital humanities; self-archiving interdisciplinary reports and gray literature, and more.
On behalf of the LPC Board, we are delighted to announce that the recipient of the 2023 LPC Award for Exemplary Service is Ally Laird, Open Publishing Program Coordinator for Penn State University Libraries. The Award recognizes substantial contributions by an LPC community member to advancing the mission, vision, and values of the Library Publishing Coalition.
Ally was nominated for her significant contributions as Treasurer of the LPC Board during the previous two program years. During this time LPC made substantial changes to its financial structures and processes. Ally supported the Board and the community throughout this challenging transition with diligent analysis and clear communication and, as mentioned in her nomination, “ the end results – solid financial processes, steady membership, and community goodwill – owe much to her work.”
A statement from Ally:
“I feel extremely humbled and honored to have been awarded LPC’s Award for Exemplary Service this year. It was a true pleasure to serve on LPC’s Board and while the work I did as the Treasurer over the past two years, and last year especially, was challenging, I am thankful for the opportunity to help serve our community. The care, thoughtfulness, and support that my fellow Board members and the community provided during the challenging season of having to rethink our financial model and increase our dues for the first time was so exemplary and made my job much easier than it could have been. It’s a beautiful example of why I love and value this community so much! I have grown significantly through my service as Treasurer, and I’m thankful that I was given the opportunity to help our community navigate through this change and help to position the LPC for continued success and stability for years to come. Thank you!”
Ally will receive a complimentary registration to this year’s Library Publishing Forum and a $500 honorarium. She will also be recognized at the Forum.
Please join us in congratulating Ally!
On behalf of the LPC Board
Amanda Hurford, President
Perry Collins, President-Elect
Sonya Betz, Secretary
Justin Gonder, Treasurer
Harrison Inefuku, DEI Officer
Angel Peterson
Elizabeth Scarpelli
Janet Swatscheno
Emma Molls, Past President
The November 2023 Library Publishing Coalition Update has been published! In it you’ll find recent news from the Library Publishing Coalition including
Forum News
Community News
Blog Post Spotlights
Please join us in welcoming Stanford University Libraries as a new member of the Library Publishing Coalition! The voting rep for Stanford University Libraries is Friederike Sophie Sundaram.
About Stanford University Libraries:
With over twelve million items, fifty subject specialists, twenty campus libraries, and a broad spectrum of services available, Stanford Libraries are a hub of scholarship on campus. Digital and physical collections span from cuneiform tablets to photographic collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement to contemporary artist books. The Libraries publish exhibit catalogs, bibliographies, scholarly books, essays and poetry, and keepsakes and miscellanea to explore and celebrate the Libraries’ extensive holdings.
The Library Publishing Coalition is pleased to announce the release of its 2022-2023 Annual Report.
In addition to outlining LPC’s finances, membership, affiliates, and ongoing inclusion efforts, the Annual Report highlights several programmatic milestones, including:
We are thrilled to celebrate our community’s shared success. LPC’s continued sustainability and effectiveness result from the work undertaken by LPC members, staff, our partners, and affiliate organizations. All the people involved in this work offered their time, energy, and expertise to fulfill our vision of an open, inclusive, and sustainable scholarly publishing landscape.
Please join us in welcoming Oregon State University as a new member of the Library Publishing Coalition! The voting rep for Oregon State University is Margaret Mellinger.
About Oregon State University Libraries and Press:
Oregon State University Libraries and Press includes The Valley Library in Corvallis, Guin Library at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, and the OSU Cascades Library in Bend, Oregon. The Special Collections and Archives Research Center houses rare and unique materials, including notable collections in the history of science and technology, cultural and ethnic groups in Oregon, Northwest hops and brewing, natural resources and university history. And our award-winning University Press has been publishing exceptional books about the Pacific Northwest since 1961.
