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.
Check out our latest Quarterly Update! It includes:
As participation in library publishing grows, community involvement and leadership has become increasingly important for the profession. To this end, the LPC Board established the LPC Award for Exemplary Service, recognizing substantial contributions by an LPC community member to advancing the mission, vision, and values of the Library Publishing Coalition.
On behalf of the LPC Board, we are delighted to announce that the recipient of the 2018 LPC Award for Exemplary Service is Matt Ruen (Grand Valley State University). Matt is being recognized for his dedicated service on the LPC Program Committee, and was praised by committee members as an “excellent listener who leads the group gently toward programmatic, thoughtful action.” In his second consecutive term as committee chair, Matt has guided the Program Committee during a time when the Library Publishing Forum has grown significantly, and has helped to create effective structures for program planning and handling an increasing volume of proposals.
In addition to his work on the Program Committee, Matt served as an instructor for a Library Publishing Curriculum workshop at this year’s Digital Library Federation Forum, educating other librarians about best practices and standards in library publishing.
Matt will receive a complimentary registration to this year’s Library Publishing Forum, a $50 gift card, and he will be recognized at the Forum.
One of LPC’s most important member resources is the Shared Documentation portal, which allows members to build on each other’s work by sharing policies, procedures, MOUs, position descriptions, and other internal documentation that’s produced by library publishing organizations. To increase awareness and facilitate use of the shared documentation, this January will be our first-ever Shared Documentation Month! If you’re at a member institution, keep an eye on the list each Wednesday this month for a message where we highlight a shared document and provide tools and resources to support use of the Shared Documentation.
Not at a member institution? Consider LPC membership for your library!
The Library Publishing Coalition is delighted to welcome Creative Commons USA (CC USA) as a new strategic affiliate! A statement from CC USA:
“Creative Commons USA is excited to announce that we have become a Strategic Affiliate of the Library Publishing Coalition. LPC is doing great work coordinating key stakeholders in the publishing of educational and scholarly works – and we hope our partnership will support their goal of creating a more open publishing ecosystem. As stewards of one of the most common open licenses, Creative Commons USA is committed to providing expert support and professional development opportunities around copyright and licensing.”
And a statement from LPC on the new relationship:
“Open licensing is an important tool for library publishers as they look to increase the reach and impact of the scholarship they publish. Creative Commons USA has already been a valuable partner for the Library Publishing Coalition as we support the community in this work, and our members continue to benefit from CC USA’s deep expertise on copyright and licensing. We look forward to deepening our partnership around professional development and to advancing our shared values.”
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 Library Publishing Coalition Program Committee is delighted to announce that the 2019 Library Publishing Forum keynote address will be presented by Dr. Arianna Becerril-García, co-founder and Executive Director of Redalyc (the Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal).
In addition to Redalyc, Dr. Becerril-García co-founded the Mexican Network of Institutional Repositories (REMERI), and founded AmeliCA, a community-driven initiative for Open Knowledge in Latin America and the Global South. As a professor at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, her research areas include open access, interoperability, linked data, and the semantic web. Recent works include The End of a Centralized Open Access Project and the Beginning of a Community-Based Sustainable Infrastructure for Latin America: Redalyc.org after Fifteen Years The Open Access ecosystem in Latin America, and A Semantic Model for Selective Knowledge Discovery over OAI-PMH Structured Resources.
We are particularly excited to learn from Dr. Becerril-García’s expertise and experience building successful, sustainable, community-based scholarly publishing.
Redlayc and other Latin American initiatives are leaders in this area, and their successes and challenges are highly relevant for ongoing U.S. and Canadian discussions about academy owned infrastructure (like last year’s Owned by the Academy preconference).
Registration for the Library Publishing Forum will open on January 14, 2019. Travel and hotel information is currently available.
To support our growing community of members and expanding roster of projects and programs, LPC is hiring our first-ever Program Assistant.
This 20 hr/wk position will provide support for administration, communications, event planning, research, and more. As an affiliated community of the Educopia Institute, LPC’s staff are employed by Educopia, and work remotely as part of Educopia’s virtual office. If you have strong administrative and communication skills, love library publishing, and are interested in supporting this amazing community, this may be the job for you! The position is open until filled, but priority will be given to applications received by January 25th.
Check out the full job posting.
Library publishers around the world (but especially in western Europe), check out this call for proposals! The new IFLA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Library Publishing is sponsoring a mid-term event in Dublin, Ireland in February, hosted by LPC member Dublin Business School. Please note that proposals are due by January 15th!
Thursday February 28th – Friday March 1st 2019
Dublin Business School, Dublin, Ireland
THEME: Mentoring and Education for Excellence in Library Publishing: An International Knowledge Exchange
Library publishing (including new-model university presses housed in libraries) is in its infancy in many countries around the world. The IFLA SIG aims to bring together experienced practitioners and would-be publishers to share information and advance this exciting field of endeavor. New and emerging library publishers will gain insight into the experiences and practices of established presses, and all attendees will learn from new and innovative approaches. The presentations from both sides and the ensuing discussions will advance the excellence and sustainability of library publishing ventures
The aim of the event is to bring together a broad spectrum of publishing programs, to exchange knowledge, and to foster networks and mentoring relationships among library publishers at all stages, also highlighting the important role that the Library Publishing Coalition plays in this regard.
The SIG meeting also invites participation by library schools and others engaged in efforts to educate the next generation of library publishers. (more…)
To lead into our joint preconference to the Library Publishing Forum (Opening the Classroom: Publishing Open Educational Resources, 5/8/19), the Library Publishing Coalition and the Open Textbook Network are organizing a webinar “exchange”! LPC is hosting a webinar for its members on the OTN’s Publishing Cooperative, and OTN is holding a series of three webinars for its membership on OER publishing from a strategic perspective. As part of the exchange, members of both communities are invited to attend all four webinars!
Date: February 6th, 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific
Presenters: Karen Lauritsen, managing director, Open Textbook Network; Karen Bjork, head of digital initiatives at Portland State University; Carla Myers, assistant librarian and coordinator of scholarly communications for the Miami University Libraries
Date: January 23rd, 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific
Presenter: John W. Warren, George Washington University
Date: February 20th, 3pm Eastern/12pm Pacific
Presenter: Kevin Hawkins, University of North Texas
Date: March 14th, 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific
Presenter: Inba Kehoe, University of Victoria
‘Tis the season…to nominate yourself or a colleague for the 2019 LPC Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing! LPC’s Research Committee is accepting nominations for the award until January 25th. Nominated publications must present original research, theory, or practice, and must have been published during the 2018 calendar year. One change for this year: the committee has broadened the definition of “scholarship” used for the program to include transformative work that isn’t published in a traditional, peer-reviewed format. Learn more and nominate a publication!
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 Alexandra Hoff, Jessica Kirschner, Janet Swatscheno, and Robert Browder, with an assist from me. Enjoy!
Local partnerships remain a mainstay of library publishing, and this is reflected in the 2019 dataset. Most library publishers report partnering with campus departments (80%) and individual faculty (78%). Many also partner with
graduate students (57%) and undergraduate students (57%). A minority of library publishers partner with the university press (29%).
While library publishers continue to focus on campus stakeholders through faculty-driven and student-driven journals, this year’s responses indicated a significant increase in the number of journals published for external groups. The number of faculty-driven journals increased 16% (442 to 512) from the previous year, and the number of student-driven journals increased 31% (224 to 294), while journals published for external groups increased 50% (173 to 259). It is possible that the increase in journals published for outside groups is part of a larger trend in library publishing, or it may reflect more specifically the publishing approaches of the many new entries in this year’s Directory. (more…)