Abstract
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INTRODUCTION
CHAR SIMSER
CAROL ANN BORCHERT
CONCLUSION
Libraries have been building publishing programs in increasing numbers, with motivations including the needs of local authors and editors and the desire to positively impact scholarly communications. Library publishers offer diverse services, depending on their goals and capabilities. In this column, two librarians involved in managing publishing services profile their institutions' respective programs. Efforts aimed at increasing library–publisher cooperation and education are briefly mentioned.
Keywords
Open Access, library publishing, scholarly communications
INTRODUCTION
Jump to section
INTRODUCTION
CHAR SIMSER
CAROL ANN BORCHERT
CONCLUSION
Welcome to Open Dialog, a new column in Serials Review discussing issues related to the Open Access (OA) movement. I've often wondered about the roles librarians can play in the OA movement. As an electronic resources librarian, most of my day-to-day work with OA publications involves providing access to these publications within our link resolver, catalog, databases, and discovery tool. Many librarians have taken on roles as OA advocates. Libraries have hosted events, supported OA policies and mandates, put together guides, and spoken to faculty and students about how OA publishing relates to their work. In addition to access and advocacy, libraries have played an important part by hosting OA content in institutional and subject repositories, making valuable scholarship widely available.
In this installment of the column, the focus is on libraries that have gone a step further and launched publishing programs that go beyond the traditional role of an institutional repository (IR). Library publishing is by no means a new phenomenon. The Library Publishing Directory (Lipincott, 2015) includes institutions such as McGill University Library and Virginia Tech University Libraries, which began their programs in 1988 and 1989 respectively. However, the movement has picked up a great deal of steam in recent years due to several factors, including the popularity of the OA movement, the availability of open source or low-cost publishing platforms, and institutional needs for online publishing services (Skinner, Lippincott, Speer, & Walters, 2014).
For many library publishers, the desire to increase access to scholarly materials is the driving force behind a publication program (Mullins et al., 2012). It can be seen as another action in support of OA, alongside OA educational events and guides. Discussing this motivation, Skinner et al. (2014) state that library investment in publication programs “could serve both to increase access to scholarship (via open access models, largely preferred by library publishers) and decrease the library's expenditures over time.” This motivation can explain why some libraries, such as the University of Pittsburgh Library System, offer publishing services even to authors and editors who are not affiliated with their parent institution (Barnett, Chan, Collister, Dellyannides, & Gabler, 2013). Librarians dissatisfied with what they see as a scholarly publishing landscape dominated by profit-driven companies may want to seek and even create alternatives. Offering publishing services is a way to directly contribute to this goal.
The needs of local faculty may also drive the creation of publication programs. Skinner et al. (2014) note that faculty members have sought journal publishing assistance from libraries in many cases, thus spurring on the creation of a publishing service. Whether faculty are looking to publish a new journal or book, or looking to bring a long-running print publication online, they are likely to need a partner for some combination of hosting, marketing, copy editing, or other services. As mission-driven organizations, libraries may be better suited than commercial publishers or university presses with diminished institutional support to take on titles that are experimental in nature, locally focused, or unlikely to provide revenues sufficient to cover the cost of publication. Libraries are also likely to pursue this path with the goal of disseminating and promoting the work of their institution's faculty and status, much in line with the goals of an IR.
Additionally, libraries may have staff and systems that are well suited to accommodate publishing services. Most librarians are already familiar to some extent with scholarly publishing, often through collection development, work with faculty, and their own experiences as authors or editors. In addition, librarians are likely accustomed to working with authors, readers, and a wide range of stakeholders. Libraries are also likely to have servers or server space at their disposal, and many are already running platforms such as those for IRs that can double as journal or book platforms. Libraries already serve as a centralized resource to faculty across a wide range of disciplines, making this new role a natural fit.
Library publishing programs have a great range of diversity in terms of their motivation, the types of materials they publish, the range of authors they work with, and their intended audience. Some will focus exclusively on journals from faculty at their local institutions, while others may publish journals, books, proceedings, and more from authors across the globe (Lippincott, 2015). In order to get a better idea of the growth and experiences of library publishing programs, I'd like to focus on two in particular. I approached Char Simser, the coordinator of library data and electronic publishing at New Prairie Press in the Kansas State University Libraries, and Carol Ann Borchert, the coordinator of serials at University of South Florida Libraries, and asked them a few questions about the history, growth, and role of their publishing programs. The following material is drawn from their responses.
CHAR SIMSER
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INTRODUCTION
CHAR SIMSER
CAROL ANN BORCHERT
CONCLUSION
New Prairie Press (NPP) at Kansas State University Libraries began in 2007 and was housed in a digital initiatives department under the part-time direction of the web librarian and with minimal Information Technology support. A Scholarly Communications & Publishing department was established in a 2009–2010 librarywide reorganization, and a 2014 task force recommended the creation of a Center for Digital Scholarship & Publishing. I have been working in a 0.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) position as NPP Coordinator since 2011. My role will grow to 0.75 FTE within the Center by fiscal year 2016. Before our migration to Digital Commons in 2013, 0.2 FTE library IT staff managed our Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform. Funding for NPP comes from the library budget.
NPP started with two open access journals and has grown to eight. Two additional publications will join us in 2015. Beginning in 2014, we now host two conference events (with at least one more coming on board in 2015) and two books. We should have a third book published by the end of this year and are in discussions with two other campus collaborators. It is an exciting time to be in this line of work.
Google Analytics for 2014 shows that just under 10% of our readership is local, i.e., Manhattan, Kansas. It's the largest concentrated group of readers. Kansas State University does not have its own university press. The University Press of Kansas represents the six state universities, a consortium established by the state Board of Regents. Their role covers the full spectrum of publishing scholarly monographs from editorial through peer review, copy editing, and layout. At this time, NPP provides hosting, initial setup, training, and ongoing support (in collaboration with Digital Commons) for ejournals, ebooks, and monographs, but editors and authors are responsible for the editorial workflow.
CAROL ANN BORCHERT
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INTRODUCTION
CHAR SIMSER
CAROL ANN BORCHERT
CONCLUSION
The University of South Florida forayed into open access publishing in 2007. Todd Chávez, the director of Academic Resources, cotaught a class with Len Vacher in the USF Geology Department. Dr. Vacher explained to Todd that there was no cross-disciplinary journal that discussed quantitative literacy in a holistic way, and Todd suggested that he start one—specifically as an open access journal hosted by USF. Dr. Vacher took this suggestion back to the National Numeracy Network, and they held a day-long meeting to discuss how they could make a significant contribution to the literature. The journal Numeracy was born from that brainstorming session and is the most successful born-digital journal in the USF Scholar Commons collection. Volume 1, issue 1 of the journal is dated January 2008, but since we were ready and the editors were so excited, we actually published the first issue online in late December 2007.
Numeracy and our second journal, Studia UBB Geologia, started on the bepress Edikit platform, but when the Digital Commons platform became available, USF moved the early journals to the new platform and added many others. As of December 2014, there are 14 OA journals on Scholar Commons with another under development. One of the key factors in selecting bepress's system is that the USF Tampa Library did not have the IT personnel to develop or support some of the other platforms available at the time, so bepress serves as our technical support for the system.
When fully staffed, Scholar Commons has a full-time person managing the repository with student help and 2.0 FTE for open access journal management spread across myself and two staff members. Recently, we added a part-time staff member to help with journal layouts, and we are currently advertising for a staff position split between journal publishing and overall IR management. Our full-time IR person recently accepted a position elsewhere, and we plan to upgrade that position to a faculty line.
Scholar Commons is entirely