Reflections

September 20, 2024

Reporting out on the finances of the 2024 Library Publishing Forum

By Melanie Schlosser

This is the third of three planned report-outs on this year’s Library Publishing Forum. The other two were on our COVID policy and on the closing plenary discussion. Check them out!

Conference finances are tricky – ask anyone who has ever planned a multi-day, in-person event. Costs are sometimes unpredictable and revenues almost always are. The last four years have added additional complexities for many conference planners, including wildly fluctuating attendance and binding hotel contracts for events that were forced to go virtual. Conference finances also tend to be somewhat mysterious to attendees, who can be left wondering what their registration fees actually cover and whether the event is intended to break even or to make money for its organizers. We at LPC are big fans of transparency, so we have decided to report out publicly on the financial details of the Library Publishing Forum. We did this once before (as part of a series of reflections on the 2021 virtual Forum), but our plan is to make it a regular component of Forum planning going forward. To that end, this post will report out on the finances for the in-person Forum held in May of 2024 in Minneapolis, MN. We hope that this post will serve as a resource for fellow conference planners, as well as helping our community better understand the decisions we make around the event.

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Water with the word reflections in all caps with a horizontal line above and below

August 13, 2024

A 10-Year Vision for Library Publishing (LPForum24 Closing Plenary Reflection)

By Melanie Schlosser

The 2024 Library Publishing Forum opened with a keynote address that looked back on LPC’s first 10 years. Katherine Skinner reflected on the formation of the community, its original goals, and what it has accomplished. For long-time community members, the talk was a trip down memory lane. For newer folks, it was a stellar orientation. It also fit beautifully with our 10th anniversary theme for the conference, but it wasn’t just an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, it provided grounding for the real conversation we wanted to have at the event: where we want to be 10 years in the future.

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June 24, 2024

Reflecting on the 2024 LPForum COVID policy

By Melanie Schlosser

A back view of Katherine Skinner, keynote speaker, with McNamara Memorial Hall in the background — Katherine Skinner gives the keynote at the 2024 Library Publishing Forum. Image credit: Adria Carpenter/U of M Libraries

Multiple groups within LPC spent months developing a COVID policy for this year’s in-person Library Publishing Forum. Now that the event is behind us, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on how the policy was developed, how it worked in practice, and the feedback we received from the community. I hope that this blog post, in conjunction with the policy itself, will serve as a resource for other conference planners.

Policy recap

Our COVID policy was designed around three principles:

As the organizers, we have a responsibility to provide the safest possible conference for our community. In the same way that we provide attendees with chairs to sit on and meals to eat, and speakers with microphones so that everyone can hear them, it is our job to provide attendees with a safe conference environment.
Each attendee has a responsibility of care to the rest of the community. This principle is grounded in our community Code of Conduct, which lays out an expectation that community members will follow health guidelines.
The policy needed to be flexible enough that attendees could determine which precautions were possible for them without having to disclose private medical information to conference staff and other attendees.

Once these principles were clear, the policy itself was fairly straightforward: we would provide masks, tests, supplemental air filtration, and boxed meals that could be taken outside; and attendees would manage their own COVID precautions (encouraged by copious and emphatic messaging before and during the conference). There is more detail in the full policy, including a list of precautions that we encouraged attendees to take, but the overall message was that everyone needs to do their part.

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January 16, 2024

Collaborative, Strategic, Innovative: Consortial Publishing with PALNI Press

By Amanda Hurford

Consortial publishing profiles is an occasional series highlighting library publishing programs that offer centralized publishing services to multiple institutions within a geographic region or a consortium

By Amanda Hurford, PALNI Scholarly Communications Director

Getting Started

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) is an organization owned by 24 small private colleges, universities, and seminaries working under the tagline “Collaborative, Strategic, Innovative.” In 2015, the idea behind one manifestation of those values took root: the PALNI Press library publishing program. PALNI’s Institutional Repository Advisory Group, a team of librarians investigating shared repository services, proposed establishing and piloting shared instances of popular open-source publishing platforms. When PALNI added a full-time position dedicated to supporting scholarly communication initiatives to its staff in 2017, it was the right time to formally support the creation of journals, exhibits, textbooks, and more. As PALNI’s first Scholarly Communications Director, I soon convened a Library Publishing Task Force to explore creating a more robust publishing service by addressing structure, benefits, needs, and plans for the future. In this findings report, the Task Force recommended the establishment of an ongoing team to support the PALNI Press service. The Publishing Services Administration Team was formed to design library publishing policies, provide services, and engage with the Library Publishing Coalition.

Focus and Scope

The PALNI Press and its related teams support publishing open-access content in various formats: repository materials like ETDs and gray literature, exhibits, journals, and books. The service is open to faculty, staff, and students affiliated with any of PALNI’s institutions who want to publish to support their institution’s teaching and learning objectives. We provide “basic level services,” including initial consultation and project setup, introductory education on publishing-related topics, platform hosting and maintenance, data backup, and documentation to use the systems. Additionally, we provide limited support for each publishing platform, including troubleshooting, training, and help with workflow design. Finally, we offer some discovery services by creating MARC records and assigning ISBNS and DOIs, and we also provide print-on-demand services through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. A subset of our work is the PALSave Textbook Creation Grant initiative, in which we collaborate with faculty authors to publish open textbooks. We provide author stipends for those projects and coordinate peer review and copyediting for a polished final product.

Technical Setup

PALNI Press is built on a suite of publishing platforms: Samvera Hyku for repository content, Omeka S for exhibits, Open Journal Systems for journals, and Pressbooks for books. Except for the Hyku repository, hosted by Software Services by Scientist.com, PALNI self-hosts all its platforms. The PALNI Development Team handles installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

Staffing and Finances

Staffing for the program consists primarily of my role as Scholarly Communications Director, which also is responsible for leadership in other scholarly communications initiatives, and a distributed team of librarians providing support across the consortium. We rely on PALNI’s part-time Development Team for technical expertise, as well as input and help provided by members of the PALNI community with expertise in this area. PALNI’s Strategic Communications Director includes marketing services like writing press releases and web design for our catalog. PALNI’s Cataloging Coordinator catalogs publications when they are completed. A quarter-time Publishing Services Coordinator and a team of volunteer project managers at PALNI schools support the Textbook Creation Grant initiative. PALNI Press is funded by the consortium’s central budget, with additional dedicated money coming from our PALSave Affordable Learning Program grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to fund the Textbook Creation Grants, its related staffing, and production costs. Supported institutions can use all the platforms as part of their participation in PALNI — no additional fees are charged above annual PALNI dues.

Governance and Decision Making

The Publishing Services Administration Team created a set of policies to help with governance and decision-making. The group set the mission for the service, eligibility, responsibilities for both contributors and the Press, and guidelines for copyright, privacy, diversity, and accessibility. I consult with the publishing team and PALNI’s Board of Directors on program direction. Each new publication does not require approval but must meet the eligibility requirements and responsibilities listed on the website. Typically, a contributor will propose a publication, and team members will meet with them to discuss expectations before getting started. A separate OER Publishing Task Force set up all the program documentation for the Textbook Creation Grants (such as the call for proposals, application, selection rubric, etc. — all available CC-BY on the project website), and the two programs’ policies complement each other.

Lessons Learned

We learned that exploring the need for consortial publishing services is beneficial. Our task force surveyed library directors about their interest in and barriers to library publishing, which helped to define future directions. Our team also found that it’s been helpful to have policies documented to guide decision-making, and defining and documenting responsibilities is essential. The approach to categorize services into manageable groups made the idea of developing a comprehensive support model seem less daunting. Also, leveraging the talents of all consortial staff and participating librarians is essential to building a service that is not too demanding for any one person. One pitfall to avoid in projects with deadlines is to check in early and often with authors and to ask them to create a writing schedule.

PALNI is delighted to work with librarians, faculty, and others on this exciting path to library publishing!

To reach PALNI Press, email press@palni.edu.

October 31, 2023

Coming Together: Consortial Publishing at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library in Support of 4 HBCUs in Atlanta, GA

By Nancy Adams

By Vanesa Evers, Author, Digital Publishing Librarian, Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library and Christine Wiseman, Editor, Assistant Director, Digital Services Department

What is the focus and scope of the program?

The AUC Woodruff Library supports the teaching, learning and research missions of four institutions of higher education that comprise the world’s largest consortium of HBCUs: Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Consequently, the Library hosts and supports digital publishing services for all of our member institutions. We host student journals, literary journals, electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), and faculty-led academic journals using OJS. Since the needs of our partner institution are so unique, we provide very diverse services to each institution.

How and why did it get started?

The Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library (AUC Woodruff Library) has a solid relationship with its stakeholders, including students, staff, and faculty. Over the last few years, publishing opportunities have increased due to the Library expanding its digital platforms like Open Journal Systems (OJS) and Pressbooks. Since the Library serves four institutions, the needs are unique to each institution. Faculty and student editors might need limited assistance with a particular platform, whereas another institution might need more in-depth support with a new project.

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June 26, 2023

The state of the field: An excerpt from the 2023 Library Publishing Directory

By Melanie Schlosser

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.

THE 2023 LIBRARY PUBLISHING LANDSCAPE

The yearly Library Publishing Directory provides insights into library publishing activities, allowing us to consider how the field has evolved, prevalent current practice, and possible future directions. While we discuss trends below – often in comparison to prior years – please note that the number and composition of the data set of Directory listings changes yearly, thus a strict comparison year to year is not possible. Further complicating any analysis of the data are changes to the survey itself. We do try to update the survey as changes in technology and publishing platforms emerge. The Directory Committee routinely evaluates the data model to ensure that it best reflects the library publishing field. Many of the survey questions remain the same year to year and new questions are periodically added.

GENERAL DEMOGRAPHICS

As in previous years, the overwhelming majority of respondents are from academic libraries, with 92% reporting this institution type. This year, 73% of respondents reported that their program is established, a slight increase over last year’s 68%, while 23% report their program as early. Just over half of respondents (n = 80) report that their program was established before 2010; similar to the 2022 survey, 68% of respondents report that their programs have been in operation for at least a decade.

Open access remains a priority for most reporting library publishers, as 85% defined open access as central to their mission, with 58% of respondents reporting that all of their publications are open access and 31% reporting that most of their publications are open access.

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February 16, 2023

Intersections: Incorporating Trans and Gender Diverse Inclusion into Library Publishing

By Nancy Adams

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 6, 2023

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

By Nancy Adams

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 LPG¹ 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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1
Library Association of Ireland (2022), Library Publishing Group. Available at: https://www.libraryassociation.ie/library-publishing-group/ (Accessed 12th December 2022)

January 23, 2023

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

By Nancy Adams

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.

November 1, 2022

What LPC accomplished under our first strategic plan

By Melanie Schlosser

LPC’s current 5-year strategic plan (PDF) is winding down. Published in summer 2018, it was our young community’s first concrete statement of our strategic goals. From LPC’s seed-funded project period (2013-14) through our first two years as a full-fledged membership association (2015-2017), we relied for guidance on our original scoping materials and focused much of our energy on getting the community’s infrastructure and ongoing programs on solid footing. By 2017, it had become apparent that we were ready to think more strategically about the future and put in the work to make sure we were pulling in the same directions across the community. The strategic planning process we undertook was a traditional one, involving a SWOT Analysis, an environmental scan, and community consultation. The outcome was a traditional 5-year strategic plan consisting of three goals, with nested objectives and action items.

As we head into a new planning process, I wanted to reflect on what we accomplished under our current plan from my perspective as the LPC Community Facilitator. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive listing of accomplishments. Instead, this post will share a high-level view from the staff perspective of how LPC has evolved in each of our strategic areas, where we’ve made significant progress, and where I see untapped potential.

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