Penn State University
Penn State University Libraries
Publishing & Curation Serviceshttp://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/pubcur.html ; http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/pubcur/scholpub.html
United States
Primary Contact:
Linda Friend
Head, Scholarly Publishing Services
814-865-0673
Program Overview
Our mission is to provide consultation and related services for authors and researchers about the range of publishing options available to them, including practical, alternative ways for Penn State faculty and students to publish and disseminate research in many formats. We provide assistance to scholarly journals and societies in disseminating their publications and proceedings electronically using a range of publishing platforms including our ScholarSphere repository, OJS, OCS, WordPress, etc. Doctoral dissertations and master’s theses for most academic programs, as well as the majority of undergraduate honors theses, are submitted digitally and are disseminated through a locally maintained database, and there is an active program of collecting and making student research available. The three primary research journals in the field of Pennsylvania history are part of our digitized collections.
Year publishing activities began: 2000
Organization: primarily centralized library publishing unit/department located at the main campus. Various operations and publishing workflow responsibilities and support activities (depending on needs, content, format, etc.,) are distributed among a range library units/departments including technology support, cataloging and metadata services, digitization and preservation, etc.
Total FTE in support of publishing activities: professional staff (2.5); paraprofessional staff (0.75); graduate students (0.25)
Funding sources (%): library operating budget (98); sales revenue (1); licensing revenue (1)
Stage of publishing efforts (1–5):
Open access focus (1–5):
Advisory/editorial board:
Publishing Activities
Library-administered university press publications in 2015:
Library publications in 2015: campus-based faculty-driven journals (2); campus-based student-driven journals (1); journals produced under contract/MOU for external groups (3); faculty conference papers and proceedings (2); ETDs (1500); undergraduate capstones/honors theses (400); graduate student research exhibition posters; undergraduate student research exhibition posters
Number of open access titles:
Number of paid titles:
Number of hybrid titles:
Media formats: text; images; audio; video; data
Disciplinary specialties: Pennsylvania history and culture
Top publications: Pennsylvania History; Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography; Western Pennsylvania History; Women in Engineering Pro-Active Network Conference Proceedings
Percentage of journals that are peer reviewed:
Percentage of journals assessing article processing charges (APCs):
Internal partners: campus departments or programs; individual faculty; graduate students; undergraduate students
External partners: Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN); Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Heinz History Center; Pennsylvania History Association
Publishing platform(s): CONTENTdm; Fedora; Hydra; OJS; OCS; Scalar; Wordpress; locally developed software
Digital preservation strategy: CLOCKSS; HathiTrust; Hydra; LOCKSS; MetaArchive; Portico; in-house; digital preservation services under discussion
Additional services: marketing; outreach; training metadata dataset management; peer review management; budget preparation; author copyright advisory; other author advisory; digitization hosting of supplemental content
Additional Information
Plans for expansion/future directions: We are currently in the process of implementing a more formalized, enhanced program of tiered publishing services, particularly for research journals, data, conference proceedings, and student-initiated work. Our group in the Libraries collaborates with the PSU Press, which also reports to the Dean of Libraries and Scholarly Communications. We subscribe to the principles of open access to research information and in April 2014 the University Libraries faculty endorsed principles of open access publishing for their own works.View All Entries