Forum

LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Panel: Big Ideas for Library Publishing

Friday, May 10, 2:30-3:30pm
Room: Joseph & Rosalie Segal Centre (1400-1430)

Copyright Reform for Open Access: An End to Workarounds

John Willinsky, Stanford University

Description: This presentation addresses the scholarly publishing initiatives of libraries by tackling the legal question of whether copyright law in the United States, Canada and elsewhere is doing enough to encourage access to research and scholarship to still be true to the original intent of copyright, captured in the Statute of Anne 1710 — An Act for the Encouragement of Learning — and the U.S. Constitution: To promote the progress of science and useful arts. I will argue that current copyright law is being used to unduly impede the circulation of research in the digital era, contrary to the new scientific norm of open access supported by government agencies, universities, and publishers, both here and internationally. I will present the case for creating a distinct intellectual property category for research, with the costs handled by the institutional users and funders of this research (much as cost are paid now, only with considerable impeding of access to this work). Current copyright law recognizes a range of intellectual property types, including literary works, film, sound recordings, video games and tapes, among others. I am proposing that copyright law be amended to create a new category of intellectual property for research that has been published through a scholarly process. This new research category would cover work that (a) has been peer-reviewed by recognized experts in the relevant field of research; and (b) the publication of which is valued and utilized, in the first instance, by the larger academic community of universities, research institutes, and the research arm of industry. When such work is published, the law should provide, on the one hand, for its immediate free public online access; and on the other hand, for publishers of such work to be fairly compensated by those utilizing (via libraries) and funding it.

Leveraging Library Publishing to Promote Diversity

Suzanne Stapleton, University of Florida

Description: In 2018, the Library Publishing Coalition released the community-authored An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, including context and resources for library publishers as we aim to raise awareness of pressing topics among the scholarly community. In particular, the framework offers a starting point for promoting diversity and inclusion that encourages librarians to help combat a publishing ecosystem that represents only a small segment of the scholarly community.

How can librarians and other campus stakeholders take concrete steps to implement the framework’s recommendations within our own programs and institutions? This presentation will describe ongoing work at the University of Florida, where the UF Florida Online Journals Service Team is developing a series of short- and long-term initiatives focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. Beginning in 2018-2019, we are creating a best practices guide to share with each of the journals we publish. Discussion of these best practices will be incorporated into initial discussions for new users of Florida Online Journals, our LibGuide website and also shared at annual meetings with journal staff. This guide will draw on the LPC framework and other resources, emphasizing issues such as academic bias and the importance of a globalized community of scholars and connecting these topics with our journals’ specific plans for outreach, policy, and assessment. An annual client survey provides a good venue to prompt self-reflection and track journal editorial policies and their impact on diversity for that publication and discipline.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: Toward Best Practices for OER Quality: A Conversation about OER Quality and Emerging Best Practice Solutions

Friday, May 10, 1:15-2:15pm
Room: RBC Dominion Securities Executive Meeting Room (2200)

Presenters: Anita Walz, Virginia Tech; Corinne Guimont, Virginia Tech

Description: Quality, currency, and lack of supplementary learning materials rank highly as barriers to open educational resource (OER) adoption. This session will encourage participants to consider issues, solutions, and emerging best practices in OER production in the context of shared (but sometimes conflicting) contributions from open source and traditional publishing philosophies. Emerging best practices for assuring OER (original and adapted) quality and communicating quality measures are discussed as a way to more accurately present OER to potential adopters.

This interactive conversation draws on our past and current experiences of producing and stewarding open textbooks and other OER. Participants are invited to reflect and respond to a series of informational prompts on issues and emerging best practices in creating, supporting, and adapting OER. Informational prompts for discussion include: contributions and conflicts between traditional publishing and open source philosophies; impacts of adaptability on production, version control, public access, and OER stewardship; emerging best practices in OER production; and publication practices which improve the experience and understanding of potential OER adopters. We will share insights from our own practices and eagerly look forward to participant contributions.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: Order Out of Chaos: The Role of Standards (Existing and Emerging) in Building a Distributed Infrastructure

Friday, May 10, 1:15-2:15pm
Room: Canfor Policy Room (1600)

Presenters: James MacGregor: Public Knowledge Project; Davin Baragiotta, Érudit; Fabio Batalha, Érudit; Élise Bergeron, Érudit

Description: PKP and Érudit are in the middle of a nationally funded project called Coalition Publi.ca, which involves, in part, the aggregation of scholarly content across a distributed ecosystem into one common platform for the development of a Canadian data research corpus, and also for further discovery and dissemination. This project would be impossible without our ability to rely on pre-existing and emerging standards in content metadata (JATS); data markup, packaging and transfer (JATS, DAR, web OAI-PMH); usage metrics representation and dissemination (COUNTER, SUSHI); and more.

PKP and Érudit have been working in this space together for well over ten years, and have seen the evolution of these standards first-hand. We will discuss the standards we have evaluated, and how this evaluation has provided us with our current production toolset. As part of this discussion we will focus on metadata, full-text XML, and usage metrics standards in particular. We will touch on the history of these standards, and provide some insight into the challenges that we have faced, over a ten-year timespan, in adapting to change (either our own, or external). We will then open up discussion into a more involved conversation with the attendees, and welcome the opportunity to discuss, in detail, any particular standard or component that might be of interest, in particular for other institutions who are interested in or are proceeding with similar projects.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Panel: The Editor’s Eye View

Friday, May 10, 9:45-10:45am
Room: Barrick Gold Lecture Room (1520)

Brown University’s Digital Publications Initiative: Supporting the Development and Publication of Digital Scholarly Monographs

Allison Levy, Digital Scholarship Editor, Brown University Library

Description: This paper explores the changing role of the editor in today’s (and tomorrow’s) publishing landscape: What are the challenges and considerations facing editors of digital humanities projects, from acquisitions to developmental editing to production to dissemination? How does the traditional editor-author relationship change to accommodate large-scale collaborative projects? As teams expand, how must workflows adapt to incorporate the contributions of digital humanities librarians, technologists, designers, and students? As audiences for digital scholarly projects grow, how can the editor best manage user-testing and peer review? In an attempt to answer these questions, this paper will foreground Brown University’s Digital Publications Initiative, based in the University Library and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The purpose of Brown’s initiative is to establish an infrastructure to support the development and publication of digital scholarly monographs. This initiative extends the University’s mission of supporting and promoting the scholarship of its faculty, while also playing a role in shaping the future of digital scholarship in the humanities. As part of this initiative, the Digital Scholarship Editor brings together key technological, organizational, and academic resources across the campus to generate a broader, more effective structure within the University to support the creation, cultivation, evaluation, dissemination, and preservation of new forms of faculty-driven digital scholarly projects intended for publication with a university press. Brown currently has four long-form, interactive, media-rich publication projects, in the fields of History, History of Art and Architecture, Italian Studies, and Middle East Studies. Though Brown’s digital publication projects are “monographic” in nature, the editorial lessons learned and workflows established at Brown over the last couple of years can be applied to a variety of digital projects, from journal issues to iterative works.

Being an Editor on a Library-Hosted Platform

Jessica Lange, McGill University

Description: As evidenced in the Library Publishing Directory, the size and scale of library publishing programs can vary widely. Library publishers often begin as smaller-scale operations hosting a select-set of journals. Important considerations in the context of these types of operations are envisioning how the library’s publishing services can support smaller journals, what kinds of support do these journals need, and what the typical obstacles and difficulties small journals face.

Using the case study of Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library & Information Practice & Research, this presentation will discuss how library publishers can support small journals. From the viewpoint of an editor, it will review the common obstacles, goals, frustrations, and opportunities for small journals and will provide an opportunity for library publishers to learn more about the inner workings of a journal from the frontlines.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: Library Publishing and Copyright: Common Questions and Answers

Friday, May 10, 1:15-2:15pm
Room: Joseph & Rosalie Segal Centre (1400-1430)

Presenters: Kyle K. Courtney, Copyright Advisor, Harvard University; Will Cross, Director, Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center, North Carolina State University; Christine Fruin, Scholarly Communication and Digital Projects Manager, Atla; Kevin Hawkins, Assistant Dean for Scholarly Communication, University of North Texas Libraries; Carla Myers, Coordinator of Scholarly Communications, Miami University

Description: Copyright considerations permeate almost every aspect of the library publishing process. This conference session will prepare participants to better identify and address copyright issues that library staff will encounter when they offer publishing services. The conference session will start with a discussion among the panelists and session participants on common library publishing and copyright issues according to US law, and then session participants will break out into small groups facilitated by panelists to explore the most common and pressing copyright issues their programs currently face. The conference session will conclude with an open Q&A session where conference participants will have an opportunity to ask any copyright questions they may have of a panel of copyright experts.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: Do They Teach That in Library School?: Educational Preparation for Scholarly Communication Work in Libraries

Friday, May 10, 11:15am-12:15pm
Room: RBC Dominion Securities Executive Meeting Room (2200)

Presenters: Maria Bonn, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign; Josh Bolick, University of Kansas; Will Cross, North Carolina State University

Description: What do scholarly communication librarians need to know about publishing? Do you need a JD to lead a library copyright program or to write a good publishing contract? How do we prepare research data for publication? Scholarly communication is a core academic librarian competency but there is currently no unified educational resource available for training and continuing education that represents the great diversity of experience and perspectives at place in effective support for scholarly communication.

This round table discussion asks librarians, publishers, and those who are both to weigh in on a community conversation about what scholarly communication is and what training a librarian should have to do the job. We’ll prime the discussion with findings from our IMLS-funded (LG-72-17-0132-17), study on this interdisciplinary and quickly evolving field. Then we’ll dig into these questions, with an eye to incorporating your ideas into an open educational resource (OER) for teaching library students and professionals about scholarly communication. Join the conversation and help us prepare the next wave of publishing librarians!


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: One Platform, Many Possibilities: Lessons Learned from the Manifold Pilot

Friday, May 10, 11:15am-12:15pm
Room: Canfor Policy Room (1600)

Presenters: Annie Johnson, Temple University Libraries and Press; Meredith Carruthers, Concordia University Press; Liz Scarpelli, University of Cincinnati Press; Liz Bedford, Verletta Kern, and Elliott Stevens, University of Washington Libraries; Beth Fuget, University of Washington Press (moderator)

Description: New platforms offer opportunities for publishers to experiment with different forms of scholarly output and serve emerging campus needs. This is true not only because of the capacities offered by the platform itself, but also because the process of adopting a new technology can serve as a catalyst for new collaborations and procedures. In this session, organized by the Association of University Press’s Library Relations Committee, library and press staff from some of the institutions involved in the Manifold pilot program will discuss our experiences using the platform. We’ll talk about the kinds of projects we’re developing, including open books, open educational resources, and classroom projects. We’ll also touch on such points as the cross-campus discussions that have developed in the process of adopting the platform, how we’ve identified needs it might serve, what kinds of procedures and documentation we’re putting in place to use it, our goals for the pilot, and how we’re thinking about assessment.

Manifold is a new publishing platform developed by the University of Minnesota Press, the CUNY CG Digital Scholarship Lab, and Cast Iron Coding. The focus of the session will be not so much on this particular platform, however, as on what the process of adopting a new platform makes possible.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: Continuing to Build on What We’ve Learned in OER Publishing: Working Together in the Open Textbook Network Publishing Cooperative

Friday, May 10, 11:15am-12:15pm
Room: Barrick Gold Lecture Room (1520)

Presenters: Karen Bjork, Portland State; Karen Lauritsen, Open Textbook Network; Kathy Labadorf, University of Connecticut; Amanda Larson, Penn State University ; Emily Frank, Affordable Learning LOUISiana; Maira Bundza, Western Michigan University; Corinne Guimont, Virginia Tech; Anna Craft, UNC Greensboro; Carla Myers, Miami University

Description: Following up on last year’s LPF presentation about the inaugural cohort of the Open Textbook Network Publishing Cooperative, this panel will continue the conversation. We’ll share what we’ve learned and applied in the last year of working together as a community to establish publishing infrastructure, processes and support to expand open textbook publishing in higher education. In short, we’ll talk about the reality of what it takes to start and sustain an open textbook publishing initiative.

The Co-op’s vision is to support campuses in owning educational content production and distribution, and members are supported throughout the entire publishing process. Now in its second year, the Co-op has grown to include additional members, including consortia. Together we’ll discuss the strength of the community model to grow publishing expertise, and increase the availability of open textbooks across a diverse network of institutions.

In this presentation, a panel of new and returning Co-op members will discuss successes and challenges of running an open textbook publishing program within their institutional and consortial contexts, and how they’ve designed their publishing programs within the Co-op environment. We’ll explore each member’s expectations around the Co-op experience, including how local program programs and services may have been imagined at the outset, and how those expectations have evolved with experience and time. We’ll hear from small programs with one person at the helm, as well as from programs that include teams of people with diverse library and publishing backgrounds. We’ll also learn how institutions work directly with Scribe, our partners in the Co-op. In addition, we’ll talk about how member feedback continues to shape and improve the on-boarding experience and related publishing curriculum, which is now openly available.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Full Session: ScholarLed: Solidarity, Self-Determination, and the Limits of Reform

Friday, May 10, 11:15am-12:15pm
Room: Joseph & Rosalie Segal Centre (1400-1430)

Presenters: Dave S. Ghamandi, University of Virginia; Sherri Barnes, University of California Santa Barbara Library; Eileen Joy, punctum books

Description: In this dynamic conversation, panelists will use the principles of solidarity and self-determination to explore the work of the newly formed ScholarLed, a consortium of open access monograph publishers, and to critically examine other open access publishing and scholarly communication efforts.

Despite early resistance to open access, the academic publishing oligopoly has used its position to develop a neoliberal model of OA. As the amount of market-based, commodified open access knowledge increases each year, the struggle for a more democratic form of open access becomes more difficult. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the scholarly community to embody radically different organizing principles including cooperation, solidarity, mutual aid, and self-determination.

This panel will explore how ScholarLed is putting these principles into practice by discussing their goals, tactics, and project proposals. Panelists will also discuss similarities with this organization’s praxis and the strategies employed during the Black Power and Black Arts movements. The Black radical tradition has a deep, but mostly ignored, history of responding to racial and social oppression and economic exploitation with self-respect, self-organization, self-management, and self-determination.

The conversation will include a critical look at the values, rhetoric, and tactics involved in the effort to “secure community-controlled infrastructure.” How far can a reform approach rooted in a market model and continued negotiation with the publishing oligopoly take us? How do “community-controlled” and “community-owned” reflect two very different sets of tactics? Panelists will describe the ways commercial entities continue to co-opt the language of the public good to undermine movements, the contradiction of ethical consumption under capitalism, and the need to own the means of production.


LPForum 2019 Vancouver
March 27, 2019

Panel: Static Site Generators: Powerful Publishing with Less Infrastructure

Friday, May 10, 9:45-10:45am
Room: RBC Dominion Securities Executive Meeting Room (2200)

Publishing with Static Site Generators

Chris Diaz, Northwestern University

Description: Libraries can use static site generators to publish scholarly journals, conference proceedings, monographs, and open educational resources. Northwestern University Libraries has been using Jekyll, Hugo, and Bookdown for its digital publishing services since 2018. These static site generators are free, open source, and especially useful for libraries with very limited information technology, staffing, and financial resources available for digital publishing operations. This presentation will discuss the advantages static site generators provide library publishers, cover workflows for partnering with students, faculty, and campus units on publications, and reflect on experiences using these technologies for recent open access publications.

Using the Jekyll Static Site Generator for Journal Production

Robert Browder, Virginia Tech

Description: In this session I will share and discuss our experience with using the Jekyll static site generator for the production of journal content in HTML format. This is a GIT based “ultra light” production process that is readily accessible to the tech savvy. The info I will share about the process is intended to make the process more accessible to the less tech savvy. I’ll talk about what Jekyll is and how creating static content frees organizations from maintaining complex and expensive IT infrastructure. I’ll talk about Mark Down, the language used to author items to be rendered by Jekyll. I may touch on techniques for porting older HTML content to Mark Down format.