The Library Publishing Coalition Blog is used to share news and updates about the LPC and the Library Publishing Forum, to draw attention to items of interest to the community, and to publish informal commentaries by LPC members and friends.
Elections for the Library Publishing Coalition Board open today and will continue through Friday, February 28. Instructions for voting will be sent to each member institution’s voting representative. The candidates are:
Ally Laird, Penn State University
Chelsea Johnston, University of Florida
Emma Molls, University of Minnesota
Dwayne K. Buttler, University of Louisville
Jessica Kirschner, Virginia Commonwealth University
Each candidate has provided a brief biography and an election statement:
The Library Publishing Coalition is pleased to announce publication of the 2020 Library Publishing Directory! This year’s Library Publishing Directoryhighlights the publishing activities of 153 academic and research libraries, and is openly available in PDF and EPUB formats as well as via a searchable online directory.
The Directory illustrates the many ways in which libraries are actively transforming and advancing scholarly communications in partnership with scholars, students, university presses, and others. Each year, the Directory’s introduction presents a ‘state of the field’ based on that year’s data, which we also publish in a related blog posting.
You may notice some differences in the 2020 Directory. These emerged from ongoing work to evaluate the data model and survey collection process, to help ensure the information presented in the Directory accurately reflects the current state of the field and will be useful to a variety of users. Changes for this year include:
More granular information about publication numbers in the different models (open access, paid, and hybrid)
Three options for stage of publication instead of 5: Pilot, Early, and Established. Respondents were asked to elaborate on plans for expansion, change of focus, or future direction (including shrinking programs) in the Additional Information section.
Further exploration about partnerships, including publisher preference in working with external partners and what types of publications other programs should refer to them.
Publication of the 2020 Directory was overseen by the LPC’s Directory Committee:
Jessica Kirschner, Virginia Commonwealth University (2019-20 chair)
Robert Browder, Virginia Tech
Ellen Dubinsky, University of Arizona
Janet Swatscheno, University of Illinois
Amanda Wentworth, SUNY Geneseo
We want to acknowledge and thank Purdue University Libraries, Purdue University Press, and Bookmasters for their support for the publication of the Directory since the inaugural 2014 edition. This is Purdue’s final year as the publisher of the Directory, and we are grateful for their support as we established the Directory and created an ongoing program of annual publications. Look for an announcement about the new Directory publisher later in 2020!
As much as we love the searchable online interface for the Library Publishing Directory, it doesn’t include the introduction found in the print, PDF, and EPUB versions. Each year, the Directory‘s introduction includes a ‘state of the field’ based on that year’s data that highlights trends and new developments in library publishing as reported by the programs that contribute their information. To make it easier to find, we are republishing that portion of the introduction here. This year’s introduction was written by Jessica Kirschner, Robert Browder, Ellen Dubinsky, Janet Swatscheno, and Amanda Wentworth with an assist from me. Enjoy!
THE 2020 LIBRARY PUBLISHING LANDSCAPE
As in previous years, the Directory Committee reviewed this year’s entries to identify trends in the data. Although not an exhaustive analysis, the following overview presents trends we find significant due to their value to the community or reflective of new information gathered in this year’s survey. These trends are often mentioned in comparison to the responses from last year’s Directory. However, it should be noted that such evaluation is not a one-to-one comparison: not only did we receive more total submissions this year (153 to 2019’s 138), but these totals are not composed of the same set of institutions, as some who submitted previously may not have submitted an entry this year. Thus, all data shared below should be taken as trends observed from our collected data rather than infallible descriptions of the library publishing field. Additionally, we point out instances of large variance, whether the causes are fully understood or not. We may offer possible reasons for such changes, but these should be taken as possible, rather than definite, explanations.
Professional communities can provide many levels of support as you develop open publishing projects and programs. In this info session, facilitated by Amy Hofer, Coordinator, Statewide Open Education Library Services at Open Oregon Educational Resources, you will have the opportunity to learn about three communities that support open publishing practitioners: the Library Publishing Coalition, the Open Textbook Network, and the Rebus Community. Conversation will focus on organizational similarities and differences, new programs to support publishing, approaches to community work. The webinar will be especially helpful to LPC members interested in Open Educational Resource (OER) publishing support.
Presenters:
Karen Lauritsen, Publishing Director, Open Textbook Network
Zoe Wake Hyde, Assistant Director, Rebus Foundation
Sarah Hare, Scholarly Communications Librarian, Indiana University and Library Publishing Coalition Secretary
This webinar takes place at 2 PM EST/ 11 AM PST on January 23, 2020. The session will be recorded and captioned to share later.
The Library Publishing Coalition is delighted to welcome Crossref as a new strategic affiliate! A statement from Crossref:
“We have seen hundreds of library publishers join Crossref as members over the last few years so the Library Publishing Coalition is a vital partner in helping us to understand the needs of this growing and important group. We’re super happy to be a strategic affiliate and look forward to learning more, seeing where we can help, and to creating information-sharing opportunities and benefits for our mutual members.”
And a statement from LPC on the new relationship:
“Crossref provides important infrastructure for scholarly publishing, and we are very excited to have this opportunity to deepen our existing relationship. We are already planning some important collaborative work in 2020, and we look forward to learning more about how library publishers can most effectively participate in the scholarly ecosystem that Crossref supports.”
Strategic affiliates are peer membership associations who have a focal area in scholarly communications and substantial engagement with libraries, publishers, or both. See our list of strategic affiliates or learn more about the program.
The Fellows Journal is a forum for the current Library Publishing Coalition fellows to share their experiences and raise topics for discussion within the community. Learn more about the Fellowship Program.
(Photo credit: See note below)
Where I’ve Come From
For the last couple of years, I’ve been plugging away on a project that began with my participation in KairosCamp, a digital publishing institute run by Cheryl Ball and staff for the journal Kairos. For the camp, I’d proposed the idea of creating a digital text that would challenge readers by forcing them to read, navigate, and perceive the writing in an unfamiliar way. The idea was to replicate a feeling that one may experience when being excluded from accessing a particular space—a level of discomfort that readers wouldn’t expect to have when browsing online.
As I designed my project, I found myself slipping into talk of simulations. As in, “this project will simulate the experience of [x] disability for [x] assistive device.” When I talked to web accessibility folks on my campus, they were excited about the possibilities of showing faculty how the structure of a webtext can limit or exclude people from reading and engaging with it. What I didn’t realize at the time was that there exists a whole literature about the problems with disability simulations, which can promote stereotypes about people with disabilities, inaccurately represent the full breadth of disabled experience, promote negative feelings about disability, and situate the “problem” of disability in particular people rather than in social and cultural barriers to inclusion (see French, 1992; Lalvani & Broderick, 2013; Nario-Redmond, Gospodinov, & Cobb, 2017; Olson, 2014). Not the territory I wanted to tread with my original project concept.
Personal Perspective
I was troubled when I began reading this literature about simulations, largely because I hadn’t been aware of it in the past. Partly, I thought that I should have been inherently cognizant of these issues because I also have a disability. I was born blind and, while I had surgeries that restored part of my vision, some was permanently lost. Recognizing faces is hard for me, as is navigation and a slew of tasks that I’m still identifying now as an adult. That said, I don’t use screen readers and my vision currently doesn’t substantially hamper my reading, unless distance is involved. Some of the key concerns in web accessibility aren’t automatically apparent to me because I fall somewhere between sighted and unsighted. Somehow I needed this reminder as my project evolved.
In a way, I’ve always felt that I should “inherently” understand both disabled and able-bodied experiences—as if I could understand and empathize with both by sheer force of will. And of course, the truth is, none of us will automatically understand the challenges others face despite having all the best intentions in the world.
Research Interests and a Call to the Community
It’s a simple anecdote but I’ve thought about this a lot lately as I start this fellowship with the Library Publishing Coalition. As I continue working with library publishing at my own institution, I am hoping to deepen my engagement with accessibility as well as intersecting experiences that I and others have too frequently overlooked. I’m a Scholarly Communication Librarian and yet haven’t put as much time as I’d like into considering how access extends to people who have perceptual differences in how they read and engage with information. These are issues that deserve renewed consideration even if we are in a profession that’s devoted to fantastic ideals like universal access. There are always assumptions, misunderstandings, and oversights still to explore.
Over the next two years, I hope to make these concerns a greater part of my focus professionally and share some of the things I find along the way. I’m looking forward to learning from others in the LPC community who have already thought deeply about these issues. In fact, if you have questions or research topics you’d like to see addressed related to accessibility and library publishing, please get in touch—talea.anderson@wsu.edu. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
Thank you to the LPC community and leadership for welcoming me in and providing the opportunity to do this work—it’s a privilege I don’t take lightly, and I am grateful.
It’s time to reflect on the pilot year of our new Mentorship Program and to kick off participation for year two! We’ve made some exciting changes for year two – keep reading to learn about our new focus for 2020 (peer mentorship) and how to get involved.
The pilot year: How did it go? (Spoiler: It was great.)
This year, the Library Publishing Coalition Professional Development Committee introduced a new member opportunity: The LPC Mentorship Program. The goals of the program were two-fold. First, the program aimed to orient mentees to the LPC, to enrich mentors’ experiences with the LPC, and build relationships between the two. A secondary goal of the program was to further the development of library publishing through a professional, semi-structured mentorship program.
Activities of the program included a virtual getting-to-know you meeting to kick things off, continuing with monthly calls and email correspondence between mentors and mentees. Participants were provided with a list of suggested questions to help start their mentor/mentee relationship, and were then encouraged to continue the discussions in whatever direction was most desirable for the partners. An in-person meetup also took place at the Library Publishing Forum in Vancouver to provide an opportunity to further strengthen relationships.
The meeting at the Forum took place over the lunch hour on the second day, and proved to be quite fruitful! Not all of the mentor/mentee pairs could attend, but we spent the majority of the time sharing out about our experiences and discussing with other participants about what has worked for them, what they enjoyed most, what suggestions they had for improvement, and networking with others that were participating in the pilot year. After the lunch meeting, all mentors and mentees were sent the list of discussion questions we used at the lunch, and were also encouraged to fill out a mid-year survey to assess the program and provide feedback.
The first cohort is currently wrapping up their participation, and their reception of this program has been positive. Participants of the first pilot year had many good things to share, including the following:
“Things are going well! Really nice to have time and energy dedicated to chatting with a peer who does not have the same institutional context as me.” – Emma Molls, University of Minnesota
“I really enjoyed serving as a mentor during this inaugural year of the LPC Mentorship Program. Benefits included expanding my professional network through forming a strong relationship with my mentee, broadening my expertise through learning about library publishing at his university, and the opportunity to contribute back to this wonderful community. All of these positives resulted from a minimal time commitment of about one hour per month to meet with my mentee, so future program participants can be confident that they will receive an outstanding payoff with nominal effort.” — Jody Bailey, Emory University
“The LPC Mentorship program did a fantastic job pairing me with the best mentor for my individual professional development goals. My mentor and I connected from the get-go and I learned so much from her experiences and advice, and made a real friend. Given how thoughtful and personalized the process, I think that this program is an essential tool in an early-career library publishing professional’s toolkit as they start out!” — Amanda Wentworth, SUNY OER Services
“Being quite new to library publishing, the LPC mentorship program was a fantastic way to get a personal & friendly introduction to the world of library publishing outside of my own institution. It was incredibly helpful to compare & contrast how location, institutional history, funding, and size of operation affects our daily workflows. My mentor was very generous and I got access to some excellent resources to share with my team!” — Emily Zheng, University of Alberta
Interested in being a peer mentor in 2020?
In response to a successful pilot year, the LPC Professional Development Committee will be offering the program again, with one key change. The focus for the 2020 year will be on peer mentor relationships, rather than having specific mentor and mentee roles. We hope to welcome many more members into the 2020 LPC Peer Mentorship Program!
Timeline for 2020 Cycle:
Applications out now!(Don’t worry, we’ll remind you again about applications in early January! We’ll be accepting applications through Jan. 17.)
Matching: We’ll match you with your new Peer Mentor by Jan. 24.
Orientation: Participants will receive a packet of information and resources and will arrange their first meeting with their peer mentor in February.
