Thursday, May 9, 2:30-3:30pm
Room: Joseph & Rosalie Segal Centre (1400-1430)
Presenters: Maria Bonn, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign; marilyn thomas-houston, Associate Professor Emerita, African American Studies and Anthropology, University of Florida, Editor, Fire!!!: The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies; Daniel Tracy, Head, Scholarly Communication and Publishing, University Library, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Janet Swatscheno, Digital Publishing Librarian, University of Illinois Chicago
Description: Publishing Without Walls, a humanities centered digital scholarly publishing initiative based in the university library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, grows out of the principle that sustainable publishing operations capitalize upon on existing investments in platform development, by choosing those platforms that best meet the needs of scholars and that library infrastructure can best sustain. Rather than investing in building new platforms, it places its emphasis on the human element of publishing, focusing on outreach and support, with a sensitivity to the social and institutional contexts of the scholars it serves, as well as understanding the publishing goals of scholars through a purposeful and self-conscience research effort. This panel will offer perspectives from various sectors of the project: the publications and workflows team will discuss the challenges and opportunities of leveraging existing publishing platforms as building blocks; outreach representatives will talk about the needs of scholars in Afro-American studies and at HBCUs, as well as connecting with scholars at other partner institutions, some close to hand, some scattered across the midwest, and their role in cementing the relationship between the authors and the platforms and the authors and the publisher and, in the end, the scholarship and its audience. We will also share some of the research insights and how those inform the design of the publishing house.