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.

June 21, 2022

Kudos to the 2021-2022 LPC Program Committee!

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The Kudos program recognizes impactful work done by community members on behalf of the Library Publishing Coalition community.

This Kudos recognizes members of the 2021-2022 LPC Program Committee for their excellent planning and work on the 2022 Library Publishing Forum:

Congratulations and mega-kudos to the 2022 LPC Program Committee: Sonya Betz (chair), Jason Boczar, Emily Carlisle-Johnston, Annie Johnson, Lucinda Johnston, Regina Raboin, Pittsburgh hosts Lauren Collister and Dave Scherer (Dave for part of the process at least), and Board liaison Emma Molls. This crew wasn’t satisfied with one event–they planned both a virtual preconference and an in-person event. And they did so with great skill, bringing to the library publishing community two programs full of informative and insightful keynotes and sessions, with good opportunities for socializing in between. They also took on the task of being room hosts for all sessions (both virtual and in-person), showing off some spectacular hosting skills, especially for the Q&As. Well done, all, and thank you!

A few comments from Program Committee members:

I was thrilled to welcome attendees to our Library Publishing Forum 2022 in Pittsburgh, PA, on our beautiful University of Pittsburgh campus. After so long on Zoom, it was a thrill to plan an in-person event and to see so many of you in person, and to introduce some of my favorite places and people in Pittsburgh. Hosting is a lot of work, but with a great local team, an amazing Program Committee, and an outstanding LPC Team, it is manageable and very worthwhile!

—Lauren Collister

With compassion, grace, and fabulous organizational skills, Sonya Betz led the LPC Program to envisioning and then executing the two Library Publishing Community programs. I’m thrilled that I was part of this strong team and had a great experience! Thank you!

—Regina Raboin

I really enjoyed my first year on the committee–met a lot of great people, learned a lot, and am very much looking forward to next year’s event.

—Lucinda Johnston

This Kudos was submitted by Nancy Adams. 

May 12, 2022

Kudos to the 2021-2022 Library Publishing Curriculum Editorial Board!

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The Kudos program recognizes impactful work done by community members on behalf of the Library Publishing Coalition community.

Zoom screenshot of LPCurriculum Editorial Board Members: Chelcie Rowell, Cheryl E. Ball, Joshua Neds-Fox, John Warren, Celia Rosa, Sarah Wipperman, Harrison Inefuku, Kate Shuttleworth
Members of the Library Publishing Curriculum Editorial Board (Not pictured: Reggie Raju and Johanna Meetz)

 

This Kudos recognizes members of the 2021-2022 Library Publishing Curriculum Editorial Board for their excellent work on collaboratively writing a whole new Introductory module for the LP Curriculum:

For the last 18 months, the editorial board of the Library Publishing Curriculum has been spending their monthly 90-minute meetings, as well as (some months) multiple meetings in between, crafting an entirely new module for the Library Publishing Curriculum. In a thorough review of the Curriculum during the first six months after the Board came on, board members pinpointing a critical need that would introduce the curriculum to a range of audiences (students, new librarians, new-to-publishing librarians, and administrators). Despite this work not immediately falling within their charge (it’s optional for them to agree to *write* new/revised content), they unanimously agreed that they wanted to take on this work and began mapping out exactly what this new Introduction module might look like. A brief outline turned into a massive outline, taking into consideration all of the new trends, research areas, genres, and production processes that library publishing has taken on disciplinarily and practically in the half-decade since the original curriculum was published. Our meetings then turned into writing sprints, with the nine board members working in coordinated effort to shepherd different sections of the new introduction into existence. It was a challenge to be brief in some instances, where we knew serious work had been done in recent years, such as DEI efforts in library publishing, but we didn’t have the space to fully expand on those points in the intro (knowing, too, that additional revisions and/or modules might be needed elsewhere in the curriculum to bolster the introductory work of this new module). They co-wrote in a massive Google doc, reviewed each others’ writing on a monthly basis, provided suggestions and citations when they could help others in the group, and showed up week after week the closer we got to the internal deadline to release the first draft to the LPC community for feedback. The intellectual labor and initiative that this editorial board has delivered has gone beyond anything I’ve witnessed in my publishing career. Each and every member of the group should feel a huge amount of pride for their accomplishments, doubly so for doing all this work and showing up consistently during an on-going pandemic. They made my job as Editor-in-Chief easy, and I am eternally grateful.

This Kudos was submitted by Cheryl E. Ball. 

May 12, 2022

What Do Library-Publisher Relations Look Like in 2022?

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This post is from  the AUPresses Library Relations Committee (Ana Maria Jimenez-Moreno, Jason Fikes, Tracy Kellmer, Stephen Hull, Joell Smith-Borne, Saleem Dhamee, and Annie Johnson). The Library Relations Committee’s core commitment is to make contact with library professionals, discussions, and organizations to deepen our understanding of how together librarians and publishers can create a healthy scholarly ecosystem. This post is being concurrently published on the Scholarly Kitchen blog.

By Annie Johnson and Ana Maria Jimenez-Moreno

In order to gain greater insight into the state of library-publisher relations today, we asked Executive Director of AUPresses, Peter Berkery, and Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries, Mary Lee Kennedy, to share their thoughts about how relations between the two communities have changed. Their answers ultimately reveal more similarities than differences. They note current sites of collaborations (particularly around open access) and common areas of tension (around financial sustainability). While there has been a refiguring of what publishing means, both groups have a heightened dedication to a just and equitable scholarly environment. We hope these interviews can continue the dialogue that librarians and publishers are having across and within our communities.

Mary Lee Kennedy, ARL

What do library-publisher relations mean to you?

ARL and AUPresses have worked together for years on both TOME (Toward an Open Access Monograph Ecosystem), and P+L, and the community of libraries and university presses that share a reporting relationship. This has given ARL and its membership a close relationship with the university press community and has led to a focus within our Scholars and Scholarship portfolio on university-based publishing. “Publisher” is a broad category encompassing many shapes, financial structures, and interests, so we’ll make some very broad observations about the environment as well as our own work.

Our interest in university presses, scholar-led presses, and library publishing is deliberate — reflecting what we see as a set of strategic opportunities for universities to invest in infrastructure for scholarly dissemination. This is particularly true for the social sciences and humanities, which still depend on long-form publishing for disciplinary and career advancement. It is also true for new and emerging forms of digital scholarship, including digital humanities, preprint services, and new forms of information such as code, methods, and research data publishing.

ARL views the research environment as an ecosystem, in which there are critical roles for scholars, publishers, and libraries. Our mission is to advance both enduring and barrier-free access to information within that ecosystem, and we seek to advance a shared commitment to financial sustainability, research integrity, equity, accessibility and diversity in publishing for the benefit of current and future generations of scholars. In practice, this has meant a commitment to open scholarship and a balanced copyright regime.

(more…)

Library Publishing Coalition Quarterly Update
April 26, 2022

LPC Quarterly Update

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Check out our latest Quarterly Update! It includes:

  • Community News
    • New Board Members
    • BIPOC Library Publishers Virtual Meetup
    • LPC Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing
  • Library Publishing Forum
    • Registration open and schedule available
  • LPC Research
    • Library Publishing Workflows Documentation and Reflection Tools Released

Read the Update

Library Publishing Workflows. Educopia Institute. Library Publishing Coalition. Institute of Museum and Library Sciences.
April 21, 2022

Adapting to Employee Turnover

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post in our Library Publishing Workflow Evolution series, featuring reflections from our Library Publishing Workflows partners on how journal publishing workflows at their libraries have evolved over time. You can see the full documentation on the Library Publishing Workflows page.

By Jason Colman, writing about his experiences at the University of Michigan Library

In my previous blog post for the LPW project, I mentioned that Michigan Publishing was starting the process of migrating our 40 or so open access journals from our old platform, DLXS, to Janeway. I suggested checking back with me to see if the pain we were experiencing in 2020 had been relieved in 2022. (Was I only talking about workflows there? Not sure.) I’m sure the whole library publishing community has been on tenterhooks waiting for an update, so how are things going at Michigan?

quote from Jason Colman: I’ve discovered that I’m only able to help my team adapt to the temporary absence of a colleague if the workflow that position is responsible for managing is documented very clearly. Like all library publishers, we’ll never have enough redundancy on our teams for this not to be true.

I’m happy to report that about 25 of our journals are now publishing their new issues on Janeway, thanks to the efforts of our editors, production crew, conversion vendor, and developers at Michigan and Janeway. As we were approaching the halfway mark, some other happy news happened that cast a bright spotlight on the importance of workflow documentation: Digital Publishing Coordinator (and my partner on the LPW project at Michigan), Joseph Muller, landed a great new job working for Janeway at the Birkbeck Centre for Technology and Publishing. Suddenly, our original Janeway expert was leaving the team.

It’s never easy to lose a hard-working colleague like Joe, but we were incredibly lucky that he had followed the lessons of the LPW project and created excellent process documentation for publishing our journals on Janeway that the rest of the production team were already using actively every day. Now, six months after Joe’s departure, we have a new Digital Publishing Coordinator hired. She’s learning her job in large part from the documentation he started, and that the team has been refining ever since.

Without a doubt, colleagues at our library publishing operations will (and should!) move on to new opportunities when it makes sense for them to. This is even more true now, I think, with so many interesting roles popping up in the community. I’ve discovered that I’m only able to help my team adapt to the temporary absence of a colleague if the workflow that position is responsible for managing is documented very clearly. Like all library publishers, we’ll never have enough redundancy on our teams for this not to be true.

So, if I’ve learned anything as a manager going through this process, it’s that the best time to write workflow documentation is before you desperately need it, because you will desperately need it.

April 20, 2022

Announcing the winners of the 2022 Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing

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As participation in library publishing grows, the development of a strong evidence base to inform best practices and demonstrate impact is essential. To encourage research and theoretical work about library publishing services, the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) gives an annual Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing. The award recognizes significant and timely contributions to library publishing theory and practice. 

The LPC Research Committee is delighted to announce that this year’s award recipients are Rebecca Nelson and Becky Thoms, for their article “The practical and the aspirational: Managing the student employee experience in library publishing efforts.” The committee was impressed by the article’s discussion of approaches to managing student work to improve both the experience of students and the quality of their work, and they felt it had applicability to a wide variety of library publishing programs that use both undergraduate and graduate student employees.

Nelson, R. & Thoms, B. (2021) “The practical and the aspirational: Managing the student employee experience in library publishing efforts”, Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. 9(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.12913 

The authors will be formally recognized at the Library Publishing Forum and will receive a cash award of $250 and travel support for one author to attend the Forum (one complimentary registration and a $500 travel stipend).

Please join us in congratulating Rebecca Nelson and Becky Thoms, as well as all the other nominees on their valuable contributions to our shared body of knowledge.

April 14, 2022

Kudos to the 2021-2022 Professional Development Committee!

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The Kudos program recognizes impactful work done by community members on behalf of the Library Publishing Coalition community.

This Kudos recognizes members of the 2021-2022 Professional Development Committee for their excellent work on Documentation Month and the Peer Mentorship program:

Congratulations to the Professional Development Committee for another successful Documentation Month and the successful launch of this year’s Peer Mentorship program. Neither program is an easy lift, but the committee continues to provide meaningful workshops, documentation, support, and connection to the LPC community. Thank you for all your hard work, especially in a year where everyone is extremely busy outside of LPC work and committee membership continues to shrink.

This Kudos was submitted by Jessica Kirschner. 

April 7, 2022

Kudos to the 2021-2022 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee!

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The Kudos program recognizes impactful work done by community members on behalf of the Library Publishing Coalition community.

This Kudos recognizes members of the 2021-2022 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for their excellent work on updates to the Roadmap for Anti-Racist Practice and organizing this year’s anti-racism community call:

Many thanks to the members of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (including Isabel Espinal, Harrison Inefuku, Yumi Ohira, and Angel Peterson) for their tireless efforts to keep our community focused on the crucial work of dismantling systems of oppression in our organization, our community, and our field. Their recent release of an updated snapshot of the LPC Roadmap for Anti-Racist Practice and hosting of an Anti-Racism Community Call offered an opportunity for the entire LPC community to stay up to date on this work and to participate directly in shaping it. This small committee has a big charge: balancing its own projects with a wider leadership role that embeds the work of inclusion and anti-oppression throughout the LPC. Kudos to the five members for their recent and very visible progress!

This Kudos was submitted by Melanie Schlosser. 

April 5, 2022

BIPOC Library Publishing Virtual Meetup

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The Library Publishing Coalition invites Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) library publishing BIPOC workers or BIPOC interested in library publishing to a virtual meetup. This call will be a BIPOC-only space to build community and network, and will be hosted by Harrison Inefuku and Isabel Espinal on behalf of LPC’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. 

Community building and supporting BIPOC library publishing workers are major initiatives of the LPC Roadmap for Anti-Racist Practice. The Library Publishing Coalition is committed to supporting BIPOC library publishing workers and welcoming more BIPOC into the library publishing field. 

When: Wednesday, May 4th, 2022, 3-4:00 PM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time

How to register: Fill out the brief registration form. Call-in information will be sent out before the call. 

Code of conduct
All LPC events are subject to LPC’s Code of Conduct, which aims to create a harassment-free community for everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. See the full Code of Conduct. 

For more information, email contact@librarypublishing.org. 

March 9, 2022

Announcing the new LPC Board members and Bylaws Update Approval

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Thank you to everyone who voted in this year’s LPC election. We know that things like this can seem small and insignificant in our busy schedules, but submitting a ballot ensures that the LPC can continue functioning smoothly to support library publishers like you!

LPC Board Election Results
Thank you to everyone who ran for the LPC Board this year. The incoming Board members, with terms running from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2025, are:

  • Perry Collins, University of Florida
  • Kevin Hawkins, University of North Texas
  • Amanda Hurford, PALNI
  • Janet Swatscheno, University of Illinois Chicago

They will join the returning Board members:

  • Emma Molls, University of Minnesota, emolls@umn.edu (2020-2023), President
  • Christine Fruin, Atla, cfruin@atla.com (Ex officio Past President)
  • Justin Gonder, California Digital Library, justin.gonder@ucop.edu (2021-2024)
  • Jessica Kirschner, Virginia Commonwealth University, kirschnerj2@vcu.edu (2020-2023)
  • Ally Laird, Penn State University, alaird@psu.edu (2020-2023)
  • 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.

LPC Bylaws Update
This year’s election was especially important as we worked to update the LPC Bylaws to ensure they are in accordance with our current organization, activities, and values in practice. The Bylaws are our organizational governance document, outlining what the organization is and how it is run. While the Board reviews the document annually, proposed changes accumulate until they reach a significant quantity or bear a significant impact on the daily activities of the organization. The LPC Bylaws were last updated in May 2017.

Thanks to everyone who voted, we surpassed the required 75% threshold of member institutions voting in favor. Thus, the proposed changes are approved and have gone into effect. You can find the new bylaws on the LPC Website’s About page.