Developing A Curriculum to Advance Library-Based Publishing | Educopia

"'Library Publishing' is a rapidly evolving subfield of publishing that has arisen and matured in direct response to scholars’ demands for publishing platforms and service infrastructures to support the production and dissemination of scholarship, including websites, e-journals, conference proceedings and technical reports, databases and mapping interfaces, digital humanities projects, gray literature, electronic theses and dissertations, and monographs. Over the last decade, the number of university presses has fallen to 124 nationally. Simultaneously, hundreds of academic libraries have embraced the role of publisher

(link is external), spearheading a range of alternative scholarly publishing models and providing increasingly essential services to campus and local communities. These library publishers are experimenting with new modes of scholarship, new funding models, the rectification of structural inequalities in publishing(link is external), and other endeavors that will improve and sustain the publishing ecosystem.

Demands for library publishing continue to grow; however, tailored training opportunities in this area are scarce. Librarians and LIS students need a tailored curriculum that is grounded in their existing competencies and institutional context, and that provides both high-level and technical guidance. Library publishers differ from their scholarly communications peers in that they are (a) more likely to deal with different content types along with books and journals (e.g., gray literature, “boutique” digital humanities projects, digital collections); (b) more likely to employ open licensing and distribution models that have significant impacts on both financial planning and on rights management considerations for both authors and publishers; and (c) embedded in the library, which enables new alignment opportunities between publishing and traditional library tasks. While research on library publishing has proliferated(link is external) over recent years, no known resource offers tailored guidance on launching, expanding, or enhancing intra-library publishing.

The proposed project will take a hybrid approach to curriculum development, creating a suite of learning modules that can be completed asynchronously online or deployed in the LIS classroom or in-person workshop setting. Each learning module will incorporate videos and readings that introduce foundational publishing concepts as applied to library publishing activities, including such key topic areas as how to cultivate partnerships with other publishers (e.g., university presses and scholarly societies) and how to address structural inequalities in the scholarly publishing landscape (e.g., via emphasizing marginalized voices and actively working to correct economic disparities in access). The videos and readings will be accompanied by adaptable resources that librarians can use to launch or grow their own publishing programs, including process maps, checklists, and model documents. Each module will encourage high-level, theoretical learning as well as the acquisition of specific technical competencies. The modules will be freely available online and all course materials will be offered under a Creative Commons license. Throughout and after the funding period, the project team will work with project partners, including NASIG, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), and the LPC community, to publicize the curriculum and encourage community members to produce new modules. The curriculum’s relevance will extend to include librarians working with a range of content types, such as repository managers working with gray literature and ETDs, and digital collections staff working with digitized archival materials. Similar curriculum development initiatives have proven popular and durable in the areas of ETD management(link is external), learning spaces(link is external), and digital preservation(link is external), to name a few."