Library Publishing Forum - Recorded Sessions

Catherine Mitchell, California Digital Library, University of California and Erich van Rijn, University of California Press
Tackling the Humanities Book Crisis
At the center of debates over the future of scholarly communication – and the future of university presses – lies the humanities monograph. In the current model, libraries worry that they do not get enough usage to justify the cost of purchase; publishers complain that they do not get enough sales to justify the cost of production; and authors are ill-served by a model that consigns their work to the few hundred libraries still able to afford them. UC Press and the California Digital Library, as programs of the University of California, share the greater academic mission to support superior scholarship across the disciplines and, thus, are motivated to help solve this fundamental problem facing the humanities. We believe that open access publication of monographs will help extend the reach of critical scholarship, but we also recognize that this emergent model requires a dramatic reduction in the cost of book production in order to be sustainable. To this end, UC Press and the CDL recently submitted a joint application to the Mellon Foundation to fund the development of an open-source, web-based content management system to support monograph publication within the growing domain of open access academic publishing. Our grant application has been funded by Mellon, and we are now gearing up to develop a system that will achieve the dual goals of increased efficiency and significant cost reduction. We envision a comprehensive, cost-effective system that will streamline production by allowing users to manage content and associated workflows from manuscript submission or initial authoring through production to final publication of files. Such a system would allow publishers (both libraries and presses) to redirect resources back into the editorial process and to disseminate important scholarship more widely. UC Press and the CDL believe that a well-designed system can help us accomplish our mission of advancing humanities research by radically improving the way long-form scholarly content is produced and disseminated. We intend to offer the same features and functions – cloud-based content management, a collaborative writing and editing platform, digital formats as well as paged layouts suitable for print – as are provided by commercial tools. Yet unlike expensive proprietary systems, our low-cost, open-source solution will lay the groundwork for mission-driven publishers to make headway and remain viable in traditional markets while breaking new ground with born-digital content. Join Mellon grant co-PIs Catherine Mitchell (CDL) and Erich van Rijn (UC Press) to learn more about this project and how it stands to transform book publishing for libraries publishers and academic presses alike.

Kristen Ratanatharathorn, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Collaborations in Scholarly Publishing: Roles for Libraries and Presses
In 2014, the Scholarly Communications program of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation launched a new grant-making initiative focused on the support of scholarly publishing. An important goal of the program is to encourage university presses to collaborate with each other and with other organizations to develop shared capacity and infrastructure for editing, production, marketing, dissemination, and discovery of digital content for long-form digital publishing in the humanities. Program staff at the Foundation were especially interested in proposals that would support new business models, such as those in which authors or their institutions, rather than readers, pay for the costs of producing and distributing works on the Web, or those that generate other new sources of revenue. After multiple campus visits and meetings with constituents, as well as a call for proposals, Foundation staff and external reviewers selected a small number of proposals to recommend to our Trustees. Several involve collaborations between university presses and libraries. The proposed talk/poster would situate these projects in relation to the broader set of grants in the new scholarly publishing initiative, highlighting the complicated division of labor between libraries and publishers related to technology development, image management, outsourcing, new genres of publishing, and preservation.

Charles Watkinson, University of Michigan
Redefining "the Monograph": How Libraries and Presses Can Work Together To Solve a Joint Problem
Monographs have sometimes been defined as "books that don't sell" and the experience of university presses in recent years suggests that this stereotype is becoming more and more true as library purchases drop dramatically. What may have sold 1,500 copies a decade ago now sells fewer than 500 and the need to substantially redefine the business model for how monographs are funded has been recognized in several recent reports, notably in the AAU/ARL Prospectus for an Institutionally-funded First-Book Subvention. The form of the monograph has also been a topic of critical discussion, as it becomes clear that print books (or their electronic facsimile equivalents) are less and less appropriate vehicles for the rich digital scholarship that scholars are producing. This presentation provides an overview of recent studies concerning the future of the monograph conducted on both sides of the Atlantic. It then describes work being done within the publishing division of University of Michigan Library, also the home of University of Michigan Press, to create a more sustainable model for digitally-enabled, open access presentations of long-form humanities scholarship that may potentially become the monographs of the future. The speaker will show how it is through combining infrastructure and skills from the library with the judgement and processes of the university press that the monograph can be best reinvigorated, and will suggest future areas for collaboration and joint problem-solving.

Of the 124 LPC members listed in the 2015 Library Publishing Directory, only eight organizations indicate that they receive any revenue from chargebacks to the authors, editors, faculty, departments, or organizations they serve. Michigan Publishing is not one of these, but by the time the 2016 Library Publishing Directory is published, it will be.

Taking the emerging Michigan Publishing Services and the long-running Michigan Journals programs as case studies, this presentation makes the case that attempting to recover costs by charging for services provided allows library publishing initiatives to:

• scale up sustainably, responding to faculty demand for new services and projects and providing better tools and infrastructure to their partners.
• advertise services and recruit new offerings clearly and proactively, rather than scrambling to estimate costs for each new project or turning away projects due to insufficient capacity.
• steward university resources--such as departmental funds, research funds, grants, etc.--well by leveraging existing skills and vendor relationships to meet faculty needs in an efficient and mutually beneficial way.

We will share the cost model(s) that are emerging here at Michigan Publishing, along with a look under the hood at the challenges we have faced in developing this framework, including coordinating with the university’s central finance office, complying with federal regulations, and communicating these changes to our publishing partners. Finally, we will demonstrate that this is very much a work in progress by projecting where we hope this trajectory will take us in a few years’ time.

Living Language, Knowing Place: Digitally Enhanced Books for Networking Knowledge in Indigenous Studies

Darcy Cullen, UBC Press Allan Bell, University of British Columbia

This presentation describes the origins and aims of the current UBC Press and UBC Library collaboration. “Living Language, Knowing Place” will result in a dynamic new resource for Indigenous research, education, and cultural programs, which places the scholarly book at its center. The project’s starting point is the question: What conjunction of technological tools, scholarly inquiry, and community involvement is needed for the reciprocal dissemination of knowledge about First Nations cultures and histories, which can address the needs of a wide and diverse audience? Gathering partners from a variety of sectors (scholarly publishing, library sciences, First Nations technology, museum curation, digital resource management), this project will:

1) Produce a robust and flexible platform for interactive exchange, which (a) uses both conventional copyright and Traditional Knowledge licenses and b) meets the current institutional standards for long-term preservation of digital assets; 2) Publish an initial set of five Digitally Enhanced Editions of scholarly books in Indigenous Studies, which will serve as a model for future publications. Designed as an interactive, multimedia resource where the book is the organizing principle, it will operate as a network of knowledge and materials in Aboriginal studies, with an emphasis on language, culture, and history. A key component of the project is its attention to the theoretical, ethical, and practical implications of the access and use of Indigenous knowledge and heritage in a digital environment.

From shoestring to sustainability: Launching a successful independent open access journal

Christopher Hollister, University at Buffalo Stewart Brower, University of Oklahoma - Tulsa Robert Schroeder, Portland State University

Open access (OA) journals present a unique and impactful opportunity for academic librarians to meet their institutions’ growing demands for research productivity. Some librarians have responded by developing new titles to fill gaps in the professional literature and to forge new paths of disciplinary discourse. Others have assisted non-library faculty by providing sustainable platforms for hosting and developing new OA titles in various fields. In 2007, the presenters launched Communications in Information Literacy (CIL), filling a gap in the literature that was left with the cessation Research Strategies. CIL is an independent, OA publication in the truest sense; there are no author fees, and contributing authors retain full ownership of their work. The journal’s initial economic model was akin to that of PBS: plead, beg, and steal. However, the experiment worked. CIL is presently entering its ninth year of publication. The journal is financially self-sustaining; it has received professional awards; it is well-ranked among disciplinary journals; it has expanded to include a third editor-in-chief and three section editors; and its model has been emulated by other OA publications. In this session, CIL editors will lead discussions and exercises showing how attendees might develop their own independent OA journals, and to vet the advantages and disadvantages of that endeavor. Attendees will also learn practical elements of independent OA journal publishing, such as financial and business planning, open source software adoption and web hosting, indexing and vendor contract negotiations, marketing, establishing a readership, and forming effective divisions of labor in daily operations.

A Continuum of Publishing Opportunities: The Purdue University Library Publishing Division

David Scherer, Purdue University Katherine Purple, Managing Editor and Co-Interim Director, Purdue University Press

Formed in 2012, the Purdue University Libraries Publishing Division creates a collaborative environment uniting the Purdue University Press and Scholarly Publishing Services. The Publishing Division is dedicated to enhancing the impact and reach of academic research and scholarship through the development and dissemination of books, journals, digital collections, innovative electronic products, technical report series, and conference proceedings. Through the integration and collaboration of Purdue University Press and Scholarly Publishing Services, the Purdue University Libraries Publishing Division has become a leader in its capacity to produce high-quality publications serving a continuum of scholarly publishing needs across the University and beyond.

This session will highlight the evolution, business models, benefits, and opportunities of a traditional university press collaborating with fellow information professionals in the Libraries and across the university. Thereby providing sustainable and targeted services to support faculty, staff, and students at all stages of the scholarly communication process, as well as scholars working beyond the confines of Purdue.

Developing Library Book Publishing Programs: A Case Study

Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig, University of Florida Health Science Center Library Cecilia Botero, University of Florida

The University of Florida Health Science Center Library, part of the overall UF library system and in collaboration with the UF Press, is developing a book-publishing program for the health science center- an academic health center with 6 colleges. This program currently focuses on the history of the center using materials and expertise from the HSC archives. The archives, supported by an extensive oral history program, collects material from all of the colleges and the library also serves the whole health center and is well situated to provide this historical perspective. Eventually, of course, the publishing program can expand to include other publishing projects. This presentation will discuss initiation of this program with the creation of a book, commissioned by the dean of the College of Medicine, on the College's 60-year history as a case study. It will consider the steps required to forge agreements with the College of Medicine, university press and hired writer. It also will provide information on the research, photograph acquisition, writing and revision process and discuss best practices for library book publishing.

Dr. Allen E. Tullos, Emory University (moderator)

Panel abstract:
The Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS) supports digital publishing that engages multiple constituencies in and beyond university communities. Southern Spaces, a Drupal-based, open access, peer-reviewed journal; the Atlanta Studies Network, a Wordpress-powered, collaborative site that features scholarship and resources about the city; and Readux, a new platform for reading, annotating, and publishing digital critical editions, demonstrate the Center’s range of publishing models and platforms. Investing in these projects, ECDS redefines sustainability by prioritizing their replicability, utilizing open source tools, and foregrounding graduate student training. ECDS will share strategies for contributing to a sustainable scholarly community through digital publishing.

Speaker abstracts:
Sarah V. Melton, The Atlanta Studies Network: Building a Community through Digital Publishing
The Atlanta Studies Network is an open access, digital publication that features work from scholars, writers, artists, and activists about the Atlanta metro area. A collaborative initiative between institutions throughout the region, the Atlanta Studies Network brings together communities in and beyond the academy through publications, resources, and meetups. The site not only publishes original articles and scholarship, but also showcases other projects and datasets for those wishing to learn more about Atlanta. The publication also sponsors the successful Atlanta Studies Symposium, a conference now in its third year. As a publication and resource, the site fosters partnerships across disciplines, institutions, and organizations. Supported by ECDS, the Atlanta Studies Network runs on Wordpress and makes use of open source geospatial and visualization tools. The initiative thus foregrounds sustainability through its commitment to open software models and multi-institutional collaborations. Emory University, Georgia State University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, for example, have each hosted the Atlanta Studies Symposium, allowing these universities to share costs. The Atlanta Studies Network draws on the strengths of its partners to create and highlight scholarship beyond the traditional scholarly article.

Jesse P. Karlsberg, Readux: Sustaining the Publication of Digital Critical Editions
Readux is a new platform for publishing digital critical editions that enables unprecedented search and annotation functionality. In Readux, readers browse digitized page images, search TEI-encoded and page region–tagged text, and view multimedia annotations linked to text or page areas. Released as open source software and developed by ECDS and Emory’s library software development team, Readux allows users to browse and read digitized texts in Emory’s digital repository; create annotations incorporating text as well as images, audio, video, and hyperlinks; and export digital editions in web and eBook formats. ECDS views the continued development of open source platforms like Readux as an important component of its commitment to sustainable library-led digital publishing. Readux draws on the unique advantages of its digital format to avoid the difficult choice between facsimile and annotation that print often imposes on critical editions. The resulting digital editions more fully represent the digitized texts and their scholarly interpretation. ECDS is also investing in the production of a series of editions as a proof of concept for the Readux tool featuring an exemplary Emory collection—nineteenth- and twentieth-century American tunebooks and music manuscripts. This work increases the accessibility of the library’s holdings by enhancing them through interpretation and open access digital publication. The series’ development of an editorial board and review process furthers Emory’s capacity for scholarly expression, bringing traditional components of scholarly publishing to an institution without a university press.

Kevin Hawkins, University of North Texas (moderator)

Panel abstract: Many library-based publishers provide support to editors on campus, both partners of the publishing program and those who work with an outside publisher. Since editors rarely receive any sort of training for their role, training and support from the library are imperative to the success of journals and book series. Lessons learned from a variety of editor training and support programs will be shared, providing strategies and resources applicable to all library publishing programs.

Speaker abstracts:
Isaac Gilman, Pacific University and Allegra Swift, Claremont Colleges
One of the common misconceptions around open access journals is that they lack quality and impact. For a library publishing program, it is important for the program’s journals to contradict this misconception in order to retain institutional support and gain quality submissions, peer reviewers, and substantive editorial boards. A workshop to educate and provide improvement support for journal editors was born out of a conversation between two librarians responsible for library publishing efforts at their respective institutions. A need for editor support was recognized as being transferable across institutions and the two decided to build a model workshop. The workshop was built around the idea that for the journals to succeed and make an impact in their fields, the library as publisher needed to step in and provide support to novice editors around best practices for metadata, indexing, metrics, roles and responsibilities, rights and copyright, and policies. The first workshop was successful, and the journal editors are intently working on each of the areas outlined for improvement. In one library, the identified needs were communicated to others on staff in such a way that collaboration and support has been incorporated by librarians outside of the publishing responsibility. The intention of the original workshop was to create a model that could be easily integrated into other institutions’ library publishing programs as a way to improve the impact and visibility of their journals.

Melanie Schlosser, Ohio State University and Karen DeVinney, University of North Texas
Like other faculty members, journal and book series editors rarely stray beyond their disciplinary boundaries, limiting their exposure to new ideas and successful models from other areas. While library-led education is essential for publishing partners, libraries can also leverage their status as ‘neutral’ territory to enable knowledge sharing among editors on campus. At OSU and UNT, we have created editors’ groups that meet once per term to discuss issues facing editors of all stripes—both library partners and those working with commercial and other publishers. These extremely diverse groups have covered topics from open access to plagiarism to library purchasing in their lively meetings and have generated positive feedback from the participating editors, who often work in isolation. We will share the opportunities and challenges of this model, as well as practical advice for starting an editors’ group at your university.

Enthusiasm for library based publishing activity is at an all time high, as the rapid growth of the Library Publishing Coalition indicates. Indeed, establishing scholarly communication production within the library, the main consumer of scholarly publications, has begun to address many relevant challenges (especially those around access and economics). Real progress has been made, but to deliver on their full promise libraries and the institutions they serve will need to continue to expand their efforts while, at the same time, maximizing return on investment and ensuring long-term sustainability. Doing so will require a new degree of inter- and intra-institutional, collaborative engagement. To flourish in the long term, library publishers must learn from the negative examples of competition and redundant activity that have dogged established scholarly publishers for decades. Numerous models of large-scale collaborative success in libraries (HathiTrust, etc.) provide compelling precedents for a better way. Production, description, distribution and promotion can all benefit from collective articulation of goals and development of tools and methods. Such collective activity will help ensure the most effective use of publishing resources and support the greatest reach of the scholarship that is published by our academic libraries. This presentation is intended to raise awareness about both the challenges and the possibilities of of capitalizing on economies of scale through collaboration and making common cause. It also hopes to instigate conversation among LPC attendees about the best way to design and implement collaborative activities.