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| Joe Williams |
Academic
libraries and the researchers and organizations they support are facing a new
paradigm in scholarly publishing. The web, information and social media
technologies, and the Open Source and Open Access movements are changing the
framework in which scholarship is created, collected, organized, and
disseminated. Yet, as shown by the highly regarded, IMLS-funded Strategies for
Success project (http://wp.sparc.arl.org/lps/),
library-based publishing groups lack a central space where they can meet, work
together, share information, and confront common issues.
Through seed
support from Educopia and participating institutions, the LPC project will
engage practitioners to design a collaborative network that intentionally
addresses and supports an evolving, distributed, and diverse range of library
production and publishing practices.
During the
first stage of the project, the LPC’s project team will document and evaluate
how best to structure this initiative in order to promote collaboration and
knowledge sharing for this field. The project team will produce several
concrete deliverables, including:
●
Targeted
research, building on existing broader surveys, that will focus on topics of
particular interest to the community, including costs, staffing, and how
libraries are financing these ventures.
●
Compilation
of a directory of existing library publishing services, providing details
including staff contacts, types of products produced, and software platforms
utilized.
●
A
forum for networking and sharing communications about library publishing
services, including an annual event and ongoing virtual training and
community-building activities.
●
The
design and implementation of the Library Publishing Coalition as an ongoing,
institutionally owned organization that serves the needs of this community.
Tyler Walters, Dean of University Libraries at
Virginia Tech and one of the project’s initiators, called the formation of the
LPC “a significant occasion in the development of library services and
community building in our profession.” He added, “One day, through the
community that is the LPC, new business and service models for library-based
publishing will be formed, shared technologies brought about, and best
practices documented, communicated, and learned. The LPC promises to advance
new forms of information services in the Digital Age and I’m looking forward to
realizing the promise of what can be... together.”
More information and a full list of participating institutions are available on the project website, http://www.educopia.org/programs/lpc.
About Educopia
The Educopia
Institute serves and advances the well-being of libraries, information/research
centers, and their parent institutions by fostering the advancement of shared
information systems and infrastructures. Educopia acts as a catalyst to assist
and advise libraries and other closely affiliated cultural memory institutions
in the creation of new digital means of preserving and providing access to
scholarly communication and the cultural record in socially responsible ways.
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