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.

March 13, 2023

Call for Applications: Library Publishing Curriculum Editorial Board Members and Editor-in-Chief

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The Library Publishing Coalition Board seeks applications for the Library Publishing Curriculum Editorial Board. Created in partnership with the Educopia Institute as part of a project generously funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Library Publishing Curriculum is an ongoing program of the LPC. The Editorial Board identifies maintenance and development needs for the Curriculum, oversees (and occasionally performs) that work, and promotes the wide adoption and use of the Curriculum. The Editorial Board functions on a cohort model, with all volunteer terms starting at the same time (July 1, 2023) and running for three years. Leadership for the group is provided by the Editor-in-Chief (a three-year dedicated position) and the group chair (an annual, rotating position held by an Editorial Board member).

We are currently recruiting for 4 regular members (who will join 5 members from the previous cohort who opted into a second term) and the Editor-in-Chief. All interested volunteers should apply to serve on the Editorial Board. Those who are interested in the Editor-in-Chief position can complete an additional application step to be considered for the role. Those who are interested in serving as Editorial Board chair at some point during their three-year term will have an opportunity to indicate their interest. 

Membership Qualifications and Term Lengths

Highly desired qualifications include:

  • Accomplishment and expertise in library publishing 
  • Research/publishing experience
  • Experience with curriculum development
  • Strong commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility 

It is not necessary for candidates to possess robust experience in all the above areas, but they should be able to demonstrate experience with at least one or two. While service on most LPC working groups is limited to staff at member institutions, a limited number of editorial board spots will be open to non-members. All interested individuals are encouraged to apply. 

Members will serve three-year terms, which can be renewed once. Members who want to serve more than two consecutive terms must reapply. Estimated time commitment will be 5–6 hours a month, unless a member decides to take on additional writing/revision responsibilities. 

Editorial Board Responsibilities

Identifying work needed: The editorial board will be responsible for identifying gaps and opportunities in the curriculum, including new units, updates or adaptations of existing units (e.g., adapting the copyright unit for another country’s copyright landscape), translations, and other projects that will increase the currency, utility, and breadth of the curriculum. 

Recruiting and guiding project participants: The editorial board will recruit project participants and guide them through their project work; these individuals would work with the editorial board to devise and implement major revisions or additions to the curriculum. 

Authoring/updating curriculum content: For small projects, the editorial board may decide to undertake the work itself, rather than recruiting project participants. 

Identifying resources for curriculum development: For projects the editorial board wants to undertake that will require outside funding or other resources, the group will work with the EIC and LPC’s Board to identify potential funding sources and apply for grants. 

Ensuring high quality content: The editorial board will ensure that existing content is still useful and relevant, and that new content developed meets project goals and quality expectations.

Curriculum promotion: The editorial board is responsible for promoting new and revised content, and encouraging adoption of the curriculum in a variety of settings. 

Editor-in-Chief Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) provides leadership to the Editorial Board in the areas above. This role will provide continuity for Editorial Board leadership and will serve as the public face and point of contact for the Curriculum. The EiC will work closely with the Editorial Board chair to lead the group but will especially focus on strategy and vision for the Curriculum. 

Editorial Board Chair Responsibilities

The chair will work closely with the Editor-in-Chief to provide leadership for the Editorial Board, focusing especially on facilitation of the group and implementation of plans. The chair role will rotate annually among Editorial Board members. 

Application Process

To apply to serve on the Editorial Board, please fill out the volunteer application by Friday, May 26th. LPC’s Board will review candidates at its June meeting and select the new members, who will start July 1st, 2023. 

March 8, 2023

Announcing the new LPC Board members

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We are pleased to announce that incoming LPC Board members, with terms running from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026, are:

Sonya Betz, University of Alberta
Harrison Inefuku, University of Iowa
Angel Peterson, Penn State University

They will join the returning Board members:

Amanda Hurford, PALNI, amanda@palni.edu, 2023-2024 president (2022-2025)
Emma Molls, University of Minnesota, emolls@umn.edu (ex officio, past president)
Perry Collins, University of Florida, perrycollins@ufl.edu (2022-2025)
Justin Gonder, California Digital Library, justin.gonder@ucop.edu (2021-2024)
Liz Scarpelli, University of Cincinnati Press, elizabeth.scarpelli@uc.edu (2022-2025)
Janet Swatscheno, University of Michigan, jswatsch@umich.edu (2022-2025)
Willa Tavernier, Indiana University, wtavern@iu.edu (2021-2024)
Melanie Schlosser, Educopia Institute, melanie@educopia.org (ex officio, community facilitator)

The Library Publishing Coalition Board oversees the governance, organizational structure, Bylaws, and the review and direction of the membership of the Library Publishing Coalition. As your elected representatives, you are welcome to contact them at any time with questions, comments, or suggestions for LPC.

Many thanks to outgoing Board members Jessica Kirschner and Ally Laird and to 2022-23 President Emma Molls, who will remain as an ex officio member.

March 2, 2023

Announcing LPC’s First Research Resident

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We are very excited to announce that Jeremy Ottley will be serving a two-year term as LPC’s first Research Resident. Jeremy’s research on publishing at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) explores a critical area of practice, and we are excited to be able to support its continuation. Jeremy has a bachelor’s in creative writing from Emerson College, and a master’s in the business of publishing from George Washington University.

About the Research Residency

This is a new program for LPC, but one that aligns well with our mission of fostering high-quality research in the field, as well as our commitment to supporting publishing activities by and for marginalized communities. The primary goal of the program is to support the research, but we also expect it to inform LPC’s programs and practice in the field. To that end, Jeremy will meet regularly with community leadership and will provide updates to the community on his work through blog posts and presentations at the Library Publishing Forum.

The residency officially begins on April 1, 2023 and runs through March 31, 2025.

About Jeremy

“My name is Jeremy Ottley. I’ve spent my career working in academic publishing, often on the digital side. I’ve always had a strong interest in the intersection between technology and publishing. I’ve collaborated with libraries, and other campus partners, to produce books, journals, and custom course materials.

My research involves investigating the obstacles that many HBCUs face when considering campus-based publishing. I pursue this research to help HBCUs cultivate a culture of campus-driven scholarship that reflects a liberated Black perspective free from the white gaze. I believe that the free expression of the Black intellect within scholarship will help HBCUs continue their mission to incubate young minds as we march toward the future.”

About the Library Publishing Coalition

The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is an independent, community-led membership association of academic and research libraries and library consortia engaged in scholarly publishing. LPC supports an evolving, distributed range of library publishing practices and furthers the interests of libraries involved in publishing activities on their campuses.

The LPC was founded with seed support from the Educopia Institute and community members. The LPC is an Affiliated Community of the Educopia Institute.

February 20, 2023

LPC is raising our membership dues for the first time ever

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This year, for the first time in our almost 10 years of existence, LPC is raising our membership dues. This blog post is a deep dive into the reasons for the raise, the process we went through to decide on it, and what, exactly, it will look like. If you just want a quick overview that you can share with your library administration or business office, don’t worry – we’re working on it! In the meantime, this post will hopefully answer many of your initial questions. We will also be hosting a membership meeting on March 2, 2023 at 12pm ET, followed by office hours where LPC Board members and staff will be available to answer any remaining questions. 

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February 16, 2023

Intersections: Incorporating Trans and Gender Diverse Inclusion into Library Publishing

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Intersections is an occasional series where community members reflect on what they are seeing in other parts of their professional world and what library publishers can learn from it. 

By Stephen Krueger, Scholarly Publishing Librarian, Dartmouth College

When I do workshops on trans and gender diverse inclusion for libraries, I often wrap up with a slide listing every type of library work I can think of. This is to remind people that the issue is part of every single role in the profession, from instruction to cataloging to HR (plus adjacent work like cleaning and security). Library publishing and scholarly communications are no exception. Why would they be? Without active, sweeping change and accountability, we continue the inequities that have been built into this profession (whether or not this was intentional). The specifics simply depend on what those inequities happen to be in our particular area of work. But that change is not impossible; it is only that individuals and organizations must go out of their way to enact it. This takes work—significant amounts of it, committed to in the long-term.

In discussing a topic like this, it can be easy to devolve into positive-sounding buzzwords like diversity, equity, and inclusion (or acronyms that lump all the concepts together), but that evades the scale and impact of the problem. Naming the things that libraries are not implies some sort of neutral in-between space, letting us sit stagnant and complacent in the status quo. But these words have antonyms: Library workers aren’t not diverse; they are homogenous. They are inequitable. We don’t not include; we exclude, passively and actively. Libraries are not for everyone and never have been–because, historically speaking, they weren’t intended to be, and the complete overhaul needed to get rid of the practices developed throughout that history has not happened. That is not to say that we shouldn’t try to develop our libraries so that they do support patrons and workers of all identities, but it is wilfully obtuse to pretend this is the case at present; denying and ignoring the problems perpetuates harm.

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February 13, 2023

2023 LPC Board election: Candidate bios and statements

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Elections for the Library Publishing Coalition Board open today and will continue through Friday, March 3. Instructions for voting will be sent to each member institution’s voting representatives. This year there are three opening for 3-year terms. The candidates are:

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February 6, 2023

The Benefits of Strategic Affiliation with the Library Publishing Coalition: Insights from the Library Publishing Group of the Library Association of Ireland

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A blog post from representatives of LPC Strategic Affiliate the Library Association of Ireland; written by

Jane Buggle
Convenor, Library Publishing Group of the Library Association of Ireland

Marie O’ Neill
Committee Member, Library Publishing Group of the Library Association of Ireland

Library Publishing initiatives are expanding rapidly in Ireland. This expansion is encouraged and supported by a dedicated Library Publishing Group (LPG), established under the auspices of the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) in 2020 with the support of the LAI leadership. The objectives of the LPG1Library Association of Ireland (2022), Library Publishing Group. Available at: https://www.libraryassociation.ie/library-publishing-group/ (Accessed 12th December 2022) include:

  • To raise awareness of the library publishing movement in Ireland
  • To disseminate information on the latest developments within the library publishing sector nationally and internationally
  • To mentor new library publishers and to showcase library publishing initiatives and successes in Ireland
  • To forge links between open access and institutional publishing presses and libraries
  • To liaise with relevant agencies such as the Library Publishing Coalition, the IFLA Library Publishing Special Interest Group (SIG), PKP, and other key organisations
  • To promote and teach the Library Publishing Curriculum to Group members and across the library sector 

In 2021, The LPG became affiliated to the Library Publishing Coalition. This blog post will discuss the benefits of this affiliation for the library publishing movement in Ireland.

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January 30, 2023

LPC Documentation Month returns this February!

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Documentation: we all know it’s important. 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 for a variety of factors. This February the LPC Professional Development Committee is excited to announce the return of Documentation Month to kick-start our community documentation chops. For the third year, Documentation Month will provide resources, community support, and strategies to encourage library publishers to undertake this important work. Follow along in the LPC-l mailing list for event details and login information to our events.

Documentation toolkit

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.   

Ways to participate in Documentation Month

How can you participate in Documentation Month?

For everyone: 

  • Organize a local documentation day (see the toolkit for instructions). Share a photo or agenda from your event on Twitter with the #LPCDocMonth hashtag & join in on the fun. 
  • Create some documentation! The purpose of this event is to support LPC members in creating documentation about your publishing program, so if it inspires you to create even one piece of documentation, you’re participating!

For LPC members: 

  • Attend this month’s upcoming community calls and workshops
    • Friday, February 3rd ; 3-4pm – Documentation Study Hall #1 w/ Corinne Guimont and Cheryl Ball.
    • February 10th, 1-2pm Eastern, Documentation Month kick-off community call
    • Friday, February 10th; 3-4pm – Documentation Study Hall #2 w/ Corinne Guimont and Cheryl Ball.
    • Friday, February 17th; 3-4pm – Documentation Study Hall #3 w/ Corinne Guimont and Cheryl Ball.
    • Friday, February 24th; 3-4pm – Documentation Study Hall #4 w/ Corinne Guimont and Cheryl Ball.
    • February 27th, 1pm-4pm Eastern, Zoom drop-in Documentation Day sprint

Scheduling information and call-in 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 on behalf of the LPC Professional Development Committee

 

January 25, 2023

2023 Library Publishing Directory: Call for Entries

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Library Publishing Coalition logo

The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Library Publishing Special Interest Group (LibPub SIG) are partnering to survey the landscape of scholarly publishing in libraries across the globe. LPC is seeking submissions for its 10th annual Library Publishing Directory. IFLA’s Library Publishing Map of the World is a first-of-its-kind online database of global library publishing initiatives. Together, we invite you to share information about your library’s scholarly publishing activities.

Libraries who fill out only the brief profile will be included only in the IFLA map. Libraries that wish to be included in the print, PDF, and EPUB Library Publishing Directory can go on to fill out the full questionnaire (20-30 minutes to complete). Get started at https://librarypublishing.org/lpdq-2023/. (If your library has had an entry in a previous edition of the Directory, you should have received an email with instructions on how to update your information. Email contact@librarypublishing.org with questions.)

Responses in English are strongly preferred; we may not be able to include responses in other languages.

The call for entries will close on Friday, February 10, 2023.

Note: The call for entries has been extended to Friday, February 24, 2023.

Thank you for joining in this great international collaboration. We look forward to your participation.

The Library Publishing Coalition Directory Committee

Karen Stoll Farrell, Indiana University – Bloomington, Chair
Jody Bailey, Emory University
Briana Knox, University of North Texas
Ryan Otto, Kansas State University
Ted Polley, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
Nicholas Wojcik, University of Oklahoma

IFLA Special Interest Group on Library Publishing Subcommittee

Grace Liu (Canada)
Ann Okerson (USA)

About the Library Publishing 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 over 150 libraries in almost a dozen nations.

The Directory is published openly on the web in PDF, EPUB, and as an online database. It includes contact information, descriptions, and other key facts about each library’s publishing services. A print version of the Directory is also produced. The 2023 edition will be published in mid-summer 2023.

About the IFLA Library Publishing SIG Library Publishing Map of the World

The goal of the LibPub SIG map is to document more fully the publishing activities to which IFLA’s members contribute, in order to facilitate a global community of interest and support. While in its first year the focus was on scholarly/academic library publishers, now the SIG is opening submissions to all types of library publishers: academic, public, and others.

Submissions will appear in the IFLA Library Publishing Map of the World, easily accessible by IFLA members and friends, including LPC members.

Submit an entry

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January 23, 2023

Transitions: Workflows and Deadlines: Making the Transition from Corporate to Academic Library Publishing

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Transitions is an occasional series where community members reflect on the things they have learned while moving from one institution to another or one role to another. 

By Corinne Guimont, Digital Scholarship Coordinator, Virginia Tech Libraries

I have been a part of the Library Publishing community for nearly six years, all of them at Virginia Tech. Before then, however, I spent several years in corporate publishing and archives, during which time I learned a number of valuable lessons that I continue to apply to this day. In this blog, I will talk about some of those lessons and how I believe they have helped me in my career at Virginia Tech.

I received my MIS from the University of Michigan in 2015. After this I took a contract job working on eTextbooks to stay close to family in Michigan. I enjoyed the work and took to it fast. It combined the tech skills I learned in college and graduate school with project management experience I had gained from working on grant projects as a graduate student. I worked on a variety of books and subject matters and was able to see a project through in a short period of time. And yet, despite the positives of this work, I continued to have the nagging feeling that I had earned a masters degree to work in libraries and archives, so after six months in the job, when an opportunity arose to work in corporate archives, I took it.

I spent the next year and a half working on a variety of projects for different corporations, mainly looking at metadata and cataloging. While this work brought me closer to my plan of working in metadata and digital preservation in an academic library, it was still not quite there. Because a number of the projects were private, I could not share my work. I had even signed some non-disclosure agreements. As a result, I began searching for new positions, this time focusing solely on academic institutions. The opportunity at Virginia Tech looked like the perfect fit, it was in an academic library where I could incorporate the publishing and project management skills I had gained since completing my MIS. As an unexpected twist, the position included digital humanities work, which was the focus of my BA.

I had to make a number of cultural adjustments as I transitioned to my position at Virginia Tech. These ranged from simple things like struggling to find a parking place on a college campus to recognizing that taking time during the work day to learn things was in fact “work.” More significantly, however, I soon realized that my new profession—library publishing—was still relatively new to the scene (LPC was founded in 2014), and this had definite implications for how I carried out my work. I’ll offer just two examples.

Workflows. In my previous jobs I was given endless workflows and documentation outlining exactly what I needed to do every step of the way. When I was unsure of the next step, I consulted this documentation and moved forward immediately. My new situation was different. Because Virginia Tech was in the early stage of building its publishing program, and my position itself was new, we had little documentation. While I was able to pull from some resources in the library publishing community, this was all fairly new as well, which meant that we found ourselves having to invent our workflows as we went. On the upside, I found that I had to learn every aspect of a project and had more autonomy over my work. On the downside, it took me longer to get acquainted with my work and to train others.

Deadlines. In my corporate experience a deadline was a deadline, and if I did not meet it, I needed a really good reason as to why. Sales goals might be at stake. In my new role, deadlines were flexible, people were flexible, things were negotiable. I have found pros and cons to this shift. The pros being less stress, more time to work through issues, and more time to experiment with projects and platforms, leading to more creative outcomes in the work we produce. The cons being that a project can go on forever, or at least seem like it. In both cases, the pros significantly outweigh the cons, for me at least, and have helped me grow in my understanding of publishing practices.

I have now been at Virginia Tech for nearly six years. During this time I’ve worked on a variety of projects including open textbooks (e.g. Introduction to Biosystems Engineering) and complex web-based DH projects (e.g. The American Soldier in WWII), and still I find that my corporate experience affects how I approach each and every project. For example, when exploring options for tools and platforms to employ, I look at needs for documentation and how a particular technology might fit into our workflows. Also, when working on a complex DH project that might take years to complete, I try to keep one eye focused on the end product and the other on discrete milestones that can be met throughout the process, such as publishing a dataset or submitting a grant. I’m convinced that my previous experience has contributed to this.

Ultimately, I have found more growth and fulfillment working in the library publishing world than I would have ever found in corporate publishing and archives but feel I have also greatly benefited from that time in my career. Generally speaking, I have found that library publishing allows for more change and experimentation in publications which aligns with my roots in digital humanities and makes it possible for us to build upon our work. Introducing some workflows, however, can make the publication process more predictable which helps for planning and budgeting purposes. As I grow in my career, I’m looking forward to seeing how the library publishing field continues to develop, as I have already seen tremendous growth thanks to initiatives like dedicated documentation month to encourage programs to generate their own documentation.