Gabe Feldstein, BC Libraries’ Digital Publishing and Outreach Specialist, offers some reflections on the recent Library Publishing Forum.
Every year, the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) hosts a Forum featuring a series of discussions and lectures on the landscape of scholarly publishing. Originally scheduled to be held in Worcester, the realities of COVID-19 forced some last minute adjustments and the conference was held online. The recordings are now available to watch for free online.
The landscape for open access library publication is growing and changing rapidly. While every library is at a different stage of development as a scholarly publisher, there are many similarities. The publishing software we use here at BC, known as Open Journal Systems (OJS), is a leader in open journal software. OJS has a tremendous array of built in plug-ins which can help in broadening the reach of our journals by allowing for very simple indexing in Google Scholar, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), or other repositories.
Brian Cody, a co-founder of Scholastica, led a session on applying to PubMed Central (PMC), a repository for medical journals. While the BC Libraries do not currently publish medical journals, his outline of the application process is very helpful, and he provides some context for indexing in Google Scholar and the DOAJ.
Another exciting recurrent theme of the forum was the emphasis and discussion around Open Educational Resources (OER). In the wake of COVID-19, the immediate and universal need for students to be able to access resources remotely has led to a re-prioritization of ideas around OERs.
The resources below—a poster, a video, and a slide deck—were part of the Library Publishing Forum’s conversation around OER:
- Developing OER Publishing Support: A Case Study; Ariana Santiago,
- The OER Starter Kit Workbook; Stacy Katz, Abbey Elder, Jojo Karlin
- How Instructional Design & OER Can Redefine What’s Possible for Library Publishing; Hugh McGuire, Jessica Egan, Tim Clarke
We are grateful that the LPC made the conference available to more participants than ever!