LPC Blog

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.

August 1, 2018

Reflection on research: The relevance of information behavior studies to the work of library publishing

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This is a guest post by Dan Tracy, the 2018 recipient of the Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing. LPC’s Research Committee asked Dan to write a post for the blog to highlight his research and inspire others in the community to investigate topics of interest to our growing field.

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“Experimentation in online publishing that would not translate well to pdf is still a good thing…but my suspicion is that the really interesting innovation in digital scholarly publishing is not going to come in modifying legacy formats that people still find useful.”

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When the LPC Research Committee notified me that they had chosen my article on user studies in the context of library publishing programs for its annual award, I was delighted and honored. When I began my master’s degree in LIS, one thing that stuck early on was the disciplinary emphasis on understanding the information needs, preferences, and behaviors of different populations as a key element of service design. This concept was (and continues to be, from my ongoing experience with the program as a librarian) probably the foundational concept of one of the required courses at University of Illinois MS-LIS program (which I took with Professor Kathryn LaBarre), and it is a touchstone I come back to in all the work that I do now.

The research that led to this article stems back to a couple of experiences during my first years as a librarian, but the most important was attending the inaugural Library Publishing Forum in 2014. It was an exciting, groundbreaking event, but one that left me with one nagging question: where were the users, by which I mean the readers, of our publications in our design of these services? They were oddly absent from the program and discussion. (I’ll note that I heard more people raising these issues in the second and third forums.) Don’t get me wrong: libraries had and have a lot to do as they build up publishing services, so there is justification in spending a lot of time talking about relationships with authors, models for sustainability, and other key issues that were very much on the agenda. However, in talking about why libraries might have something to offer in publishing, a key theme for the inaugural conference, why not emphasize our tradition of investigation into how and why people use our resources as a strength in delivering publications to users? (more…)

Fellows Journal. Logo for the Library Publishing Coalition. Background image features bokeh lights in blues and greens.
July 27, 2018

Three publishing conferences with a common theme of diversity and whiteness

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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 .

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“The lesson that we are all learning, myself included, is that to simply do our jobs as we’ve been doing them is not enough. We must not only examine our publishing lists, but our editorial boards, reviewers, and ourselves, to learn and improve to move toward a more equitable profession. LPC, SSP, and AUP are three organizations that are very much a part of the same scholarly ecosystem, and we can all work together toward the goal of intersectional diversity and accessibility.”

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Previous to my career librarianship, I worked in academic publishing, and therefore had experience in the world of academic conferences as a vendor and editor. In all my time in academic publishing, however, I never attended a conference that was for my own professional development. In contrast, as a librarian, this year I attended the Library Publishing Forum, the Association of University Presses Annual Meeting, and the Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting.

Library Publishing Forum

I’ll be frank that I’m very biased toward the Library Publishing Forum, and not just because I’m one of the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) Fellows. A first-time attendee at the conference asked me, “Are people always so friendly?” I was able to answer Yes: I’ve attended four out of the five forums, and it’s always been a warm community. My personal theory is this is because so many of us library publishers are departments of one or very few within our institutions, so coming to the Library Publishing Forum is an opportunity to be amongst colleagues with similar roles. But it’s also a very collaborative community, and this conference was just another example of how we are cooperatively engaged with each other to improve software platforms and create new processes for publishing more effectively. The sessions are frequently practical and full of helpful examples, while still honest about difficulties and limitations in execution. I feel that every year, we as a community move forward together, regardless of the resources at each institution, simply because we share knowledge with each other so well.

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New publication: An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, Version 1.0
July 24, 2018

An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, Version 1.0

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The Library Publishing Coalition is very excited to announce the release of a new resource: An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, Version 1.0. Inspired by discussions at the 2017 Library Publishing Forum, the Framework was created by the members of the Ethical Framework for Library Publishing Task Force, with the assistance of many community members who served as peer reviewers and workshop participants, as well as the staff of the Educopia Institute. The Framework introduces library publishers to important ethical considerations in a variety of areas and provides concrete recommendations for ethical scholarly publishing. As the version number in the title suggests, this is meant to be an evolving document – to be updated and expanded over time. We would love to hear from the community about how this document is useful to you and how it could be improved – please email contact@librarypublishing.org with feedback and suggestions!

The Framework is now available in HTML and PDF, both of which can be accessed via LPC’s Resources page. Many thanks to Purdue University Libraries for their production support and for hosting the PDF version of the document!

The Framework is released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, so it can be freely copied, distributed, and built upon. However, where possible, please link to the version of record rather than reposting, to help us track the document’s impact and to ensure that the latest version is easily discoverable.

July 24, 2018

Call for entries: 2019 Library Publishing Directory

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Does your library publish journals, monographs, conference proceedings, or technical reports? Do you provide hosting and support services for digital humanities projects, data, or ETDs? Help us to document the range of activities that libraries are undertaking in “publishing” (broadly defined) through their work in scholarly communications, digital humanities, digital sciences, and institutional repositories. To promote collaboration and knowledge-sharing, and to raise the visibility of the unique contributions of libraries as publishers, the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is compiling the sixth edition of our Library Publishing Directory.

To have a profile of your library included in the Directory, please complete our questionnaire by August 24th. 

The questionnaire takes between 30 and 45 minutes to complete. You can save your progress and return later, but we recommend previewing the questions before you begin. If your library has had an entry in a previous edition of the Directory, you should receive an email with instructions on how to update it. Email contact@librarypublishing.org with questions. 

About the Directory

The Library Publishing Directory is an important tool for libraries wishing to learn about this emerging field, connect with their peers, and align their practices with those of the broader community. Last year’s edition featured 156 libraries in half a dozen nations. The Directory is published openly on the web and includes contact information, descriptions, and other key facts about each library’s publishing services. Previous editions (in PDF, EPUB, and database versions)  can be found on the LPC website.

The Directory is made possible by the generous donation of services from Purdue University Libraries and Bookmasters.

Submit an Entry

July 18, 2018

LPC welcomes a new member: Dublin Business School

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The Library Publishing Coalition is delighted to welcome Dublin Business School as a new member! About DBS:

DBS Library aims to be a leading force in the creation of a library publishing culture in Ireland;  publishing journals and monographs, teaching and sharing best practice, fostering networks and communities within Irish academia and internationally. DBS Library Press is a centre for expertise in library publishing in Ireland; supporting academic discourse and pedagogy through the publication of peer-reviewed, open access journals and monographs.  DBS Library Press currently publishes two journals, DBS Business Review and Studies in Arts and Humanities Journal.  Both journals are open access, peer-reviewed, cross-institutional academic journals.  Library staff occupy key roles on both journals; Managing Editor, Senior Editor and Editorial Board membership.

DBS, Dublin Business School, excellence through learning

July 17, 2018

LPC welcomes a new strategic affiliate: SPARC

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SPARC with a red star graphic

The Library Publishing Coalition is delighted to welcome the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) as a new strategic affiliate! A statement from SPARC:

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is delighted to officially join the Library Publishing Coalition’s Strategic Affiliates Program to promote openness and community-driven change in the scholarly communications arena. As a catalyst for action, SPARC focuses on collaborating with other stakeholders—including authors, publishers, libraries, students, funders, policymakers and the public—to build on the opportunities created by the Internet, promoting changes to both infrastructure and culture needed to make open the default for research and education. SPARC and the LPC share core values and a commitment to openness and advocacy, and we’re looking forward to expanding our collaboration to expand the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials. To learn more about SPARC and our global affiliates in Africa, Europe and Japan, please visit our site.

And a statement from LPC on the new relationship:

 LPC’s vision is “a scholarly publishing landscape that is open, inclusive, and sustainable,” and SPARC’s work advocating for openness around the world has been transformational – for libraries, for scholars, and for scholarship itself in many areas. We are thrilled to add SPARC to our list of strategic affiliates and to officially recognize our shared values and goals. We look forward to continuing and expanding collaboration between our two organizations.

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.

LPC Strategic Affiliates icon

July 10, 2018

Announcing a new LPC sponsor: Scholastica

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We are excited to announce a new organization-level sponsorship through our Publishers and Service Providers Program: Scholastica. We sincerely appreciate their support!

Statement from Scholastica

Scholastica is a web-based software platform with easy-to-use tools and services for every aspect of publishing academic journals— from peer review, to website design and article hosting, to typesetting. Scholastica’s mission is to create tools to publish academic journals more efficiently and affordably in order to facilitate a sustainable research future. Over 700 journals across disciplines use Scholastica software to manage peer review and publish modern open access articles online.

We see a future where the majority of academic journals are owned and operated by the academy, instead of large corporate publishers. And we believe the way to make that possible is to take the manual work and technical headaches out of publishing with great software so that any organization can run their own journals. Scholastica is proud to be a Library Publishing Coalition sponsor and committed to supporting community-led open access publishing.

Scholastica

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…)