Many academic libraries are moving into the publishing landscape, and an increasing number of university presses are now part of their university library infrastructure. The business of libraries and publishers are now intertwined and overlapping. Libraries have been proponents of open access, whereas many scholarly publishers have been wary about, if not hesitant to implement, open models. How are priorities such as funding and sustainability achieved? The Mason Publishing Group, an initiative within the George Mason University Library, provides support and resources to the George Mason University community for creating, curating, and disseminating scholarly, creative, and educational works. Programs and services of the Mason Publishing Group include the George Mason University Press, scholarly communication and copyright, University dissertation and thesis services, the Mason institutional repository (MARS), electronic journal hosting and publishing, and data publication. Planned services include publication of e-books and conference proceedings. This session provides an overview of the current library publishing landscape and efforts at Mason to create and sustain this initiative.
Presented at the Washington Research Library Consortium 2015 Annual Meeting by John W. Warren- Head, Mason Publishing Group/George Mason University Press, George Mason University Libraries
5. Academic libraries have long been involved
in scholarly communication
Traditional role of libraries in scholarly
communication has been:
• Organize and provide access to physical and
virtual collections
• Assist researchers and scholars in finding
relevant sources
• Assist researchers and faculty members in
locating citations to their published works
• Preserve the written works of scholarly
community at their institution
6. Research libraries are increasingly
embracing open scholarship and publishing
• A 2012 survey of 144 academic libraries found that
54 percent were considering or providing
publishing services
• Library-based publishing is defined as ‘the
organized production and dissemination of
scholarly works in any format as a service provided
by the library’
• Academic libraries have invested in digital
repositories and have pursued models for open
scholarship
• 75 percent involved in publishing publish 1 – 6
journals; the majority are distributed electronically
7. Library publishing can comprise a wide
variety of related activities
• Academic commons: repositories of digital scholarly
work and research
• Licensing, registration: ISBNs, DOIs, ORCID, etc.
• Research to publication support/consulting: editorial
services, copyrighting, project planning, etc.
• Digital publishing: journals, ebooks, conference
proceedings, Open Educational Resources, textbooks
• Digitization and long-term preservation: printed texts,
images, multimedia
• Conversion of content into XML
• Data publishing, archiving, and other services
• Intellectual property rights consulting
• Grant/federally funded research compliance: OA,
accessibility
8. Sustainability of these programs may
be a longer-term issue
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Recover direct
costs
Recover direct /
indirect
(overhead)
costs
Generate an
operating
surplus
Operate at an
acceptable loss
None of these
PercentageofRespondents
Library's Financial Objective for Publishing Operations
IMLS Library Publishing Services: Final
Report
9. Funding sources for publishing programs is
expected to change over time
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
PercentageofRespondents
Library's Current and Projected Funding Sources
for Publishing Operations
2010 2020
IMLS Library Publishing Services: Final
Report
10. Nevertheless, library directors view library
publishing as a likely future scenario
Envisioning the Library’s Role in Scholarly Communication in the
Year 2025
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Surviving Through
Collaboration
Library as Catalyst Librarians Role
Reinvented
Librarian As
Publisher
PercentageofRespondents
Future Library Scenarios to 2025:
Survey of ARL Library Directors
11. Scholarly publishing is facing
significant challenges
• Print sales declining—or flat at best; ebooks sales
may not be enough to pick up the slack
– Despite robust digital initiatives, ~90 percent of Harvard
University Press revenue comes from print
• Running two businesses: a legacy print business
and a digital start up
• Desirability of open access competes with need for
sales revenue
– University Presses experimenting with OA, but no known
long-term sustainable model for OA books has emerged to
date
• Institutional support may be hard to count on in the
long run
12. Strategic partnerships with faculty,
researchers, and students are key
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
No partners Yes, with
dept level
partners
Yes, with
college level
partners
Yes, with
university
press
Yes, with IT
partners
Yes, with
other
partners
PercentageofRespondents
Library's Collaboration with other Units in Publishing
IMLS Library Publishing Services: Final
Report
13. George Mason University Library has been
developing expertise and capacity in digital
publishing
• Over past decade, library had initiated
copyright office, digital repository, ETDs,
open access journals, and data services
• George Mason University Press was
transferred to the Library in July 2013
• Provided the catalyst to launch a multifaceted
publishing program for the University
• Provost Stearns endorsed the initiative in Fall
2013
14. Mason Publishing Group broadens the
library’s involvement in the research cycle
• Advances activities supporting the creation,
dissemination, and curation of scholarly,
creative, and educational works
• Provides a platform that supports and brands
the intellectual output of the University
• Offers an alternative to traditional publishers
• Publishes work that doesn’t “fit” elsewhere
– Undergraduate research projects, conference papers,
working papers, datasets, digital humanities, media files,
etc.
• Leverages digital workflows to encourage
open-access publishing
16. Mason Publishing Group will succeed based
on sound strategic priorities
• Align with George Mason University’s
strengths and mission
• Integrate digital opportunities throughout
Mason Publishing Group and the George
Mason University Press
• Engage with communities in core
academic and professional fields
18. Mason Publishing aligns with strategic
priorities of George Mason University
• Sharpen focus on research and scholarship by
increasing focus on strategic research themes, and
increasing collaboration, support, and attention to
results
• Enrich the quality and breadth of learning by
engaging students in research, integrating research
into teaching, ensuring programs have defined and
measurable outcomes, broadening student
experience, and increasing interdisciplinary
opportunities
• Fully integrate the university with the community
(local and global)
19. Align Mason Publishing Group editorially
with key centers and departments
• College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• School of Public Policy
• College of Education and Human
Development
• School of Management
• School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
• Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
• Center, Terrorism, Transnational Crime and
Corruption
20.
21.
22. Pursue technological and pedagogical
partnerships with innovative Mason centers
• Center for Teaching and Faculty
Excellence
• Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and
New Media
• Center for Global Education
• Center for Digital Media Innovation and
Diversity
• Graduate and Professional Student
Association
23.
24.
25. Engage an advisory board with key center
directors and department chairs
• Provides guidance on how to enhance the
impact of George Mason University’s
scholarship by developing publishing
products closely aligned with Mason’s
strengths
• Helps to align George Mason University
Press’s editorial focus with Mason’s key
strengths
• Focus on campus partnerships that add
mutual value
26. Share staff and infrastructure between
two scholarly “imprints”
• George Mason University Press: branded;
peer-reviewed; actively marketed and
distributed; books and journals aligned
with Mason’s mission; discipline-focused
• Mason Publishing Group Services: less
formal, theses and dissertations, technical
reports, conference reports; institution-
focused, discovery-based
28. Provide advice, training, and workshops to
key stakeholders on campus
• Provide workshops on best-practices in
publishing
• Help faculty regarding publishing, how to
promote their scholarship, trends in Altmetics
• Offer support, instruction, and distribution
services for departments, centers, and
student organizations interested in publishing
academic journals
• Learning about scholarly publishing advances
key skills for undergraduates and graduate
students
29.
30. Strategic Priority 2:
Integrate digital opportunities
throughout Mason Publishing Group
and the George Mason
University Press
31. Incorporate digital from acquisitions to
EDP, from multiple outputs to discovery
• XML-first or early for flexibility and
repurposing content across platforms
• Construct efficient digital workflows
– Input, production, ebook creation and distribution,
metadata
• Open source publishing software and
platforms
• Focus on metadata and discovery
• Partner with digital education vendors
– Digital shorts and enhanced eBooks
32. Let’s take a look at features
of the ebook of the future
33. Let’s imagine a future scholarly book on
the Americas before Columbus
Image used with permission: Tatiana Parcero
42. • Links to in-depth topics of interest to the reader,
encourage comments and collaboration
• Social features promote comments,
conversations, and collaboration between
authors, scholars, and readers
• Creative Commons license encourages
modules to be remixed and repurposed
• Open video allows easier editing and remixing
of video, audio, and text
• Deep Web semantic search reveals customized
content, uncluttered by irrelevant results
The eBook of the future encourages
collaboration and continuous learning
43. Teachers and
students used the
marginalia of ancient
books as a jumping
off point for an oral
conversation and to
deepen collective
understanding
44. Social Book turns each document, each
paragraph, into a conversation
46. Open source software for journals, papers,
conference proceedings, and monographs
47. The number of journals using Open Journal
Systems has risen dramatically
48. Purdue University is pursuing a digital
textbook development project
• Faculty volunteers receive a $5,000 honorarium to
build an e-text that will replace a current textbook
• Textbooks developed with Purdue University Press,
are made available in print-on-demand and through
an e-text platform named Skyepack
• Planned $10-20 price tag for e-text and print
component at a low cost as well
• Faculty producing these texts have expressed
interest in including enhanced materials with the e-
text, such as videos, interactive games, or
specialized graphics
49. • Allows anyone to create
classroom teaching materials
that students can view on
computers or smartphones (see
video)
• Uses “freemium” model: Users
can create and distribute initial
digital packs at no cost;
additional publishing space
added for a fee
• Authors can combine video,
specialized calculators,
interactive media, Google
maps, presentation slides,
Skyepack is a hybrid of ebook and
mobile application
51. Format flexibility
(html, pdf, epub, POD)
Discoverability
Personalization Multimedia
Monetization Mobile reading
Minisites Altmetrics
Research Data Filtering
Pursue technologies that make a difference
in production, dissemination, and discovery
53. The definition of the book is in flux
• What is a book in the digital age?
• Interactivity, hyperlinks, audio and video,
gaming, auto-assessment and artificial
intelligence are beginning to change what a
“book” means and represents
• Opportunities to collaborate with organizations
specializing in online learning/MOOCs
• Publisher book or dataset as API
• Chunking and micro-content are increasingly
pervasive
55. Contribute to communities of learners and
teachers in core subject areas
• Be a resource: a locus of activity via
conferences, website, social media, webinars
• Provide metrics for teachers and authors, not
only citations but Altmetrics, views, downloads
• Helping teachers and learners by becoming a
source of information and resources such as
technical papers and conference proceedings
• Personalize the publishing process for authors
• Be a resource for funding opportunities,
advances in scholarly publication process
56. Promote engaged learning
• Partner with learning centers, online
educators, and digital entrepreneurs to
expand delivery
• Provide dynamic, repurposable content for
communities of online and blended education
– MOOCs and online education
– Games and simulations
• Create new opportunities for networked
learning
57. Share news, tools, research, insights,
and projects that promote engaged
learning
61. Integrate social media throughout the
press
• Develop a consistent voice on a few key
platforms
• Include social media links/buttons on home
page, catalog, brochures, advertisements, email
newsletters
• Include “share this” buttons/widgets on all web
pages, including individual title pages
• Cross-promote social media sites on each
platform
• Educate authors about what they can do to
create twitter feeds, blogs, effective Facebook
presence
62. Redefine what it means to be
a scholarly publisher
• Challenge the status quo and conventional wisdom;
question entrenched processes and systems
• Less about finding “hits” and managing authors,
more about managing digital assets and metadata
for increased customization and findability
• Create and maintain a culture of meaning and
learning
• Ensure that everyone’s voice is heard and everyone
makes a contribution
• Make workflow more efficient
• Develop and maintain a culture of high
expectations—for people and content
• Be environmentally sensitive
63. Questions / Discussion
• Please contact me with any questions or
comments:
John W. Warren
jwarre13@gmu.edu
703-993-3636
johnwwarren@gmail.com
64. Sources/Bibliography
• Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, (various
articles) Special Issue: Library Publishing, Volume 2, Issue 4, 2014,
(as of March 1, 2015: http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss4/1/)
• Bonn, Maria and Mike Furlough, eds., Getting the Word Out:
Libraries as Academic Publishers, Association of College and
Research Libraries, Chicago, IL, 2015 (OA version as of March 4,
2015:
http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/publications/bo
oksanddigitalresources/digital/9780838986981_getting_OA.pdf)
• Busher, Casey and Irene Kamotsky,“Stories and Statistics from
Library-led Publishing,” Learned Publishing Vol 28, No.1, January
2015 (as of March 2, 2015:
http://works.bepress.com/casey_busher/5 )
• Carpenter, Maria et al., “Envisioning the Library’s Role in Scholarly
Communication in the Year 2025,” portal: Libraries and the Academy
11, no. 2, 2011 (dx.doi.org/10.1353/pla.2011.0014)
65. Sources/Bibliography (2)
• Lambert, Craig, “The ‘Wild West’ of Academic Publishing,” Harvard
Magazine, January-February 2015 (as of March 2, 2015:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/01/the-wild-west-of-academic-
publishing)
• Mullins, James L. et al., Library Publishing Services: Strategies For
Success, Final Research Report, SPARC, Washington DC, March
2012 (as of March 1, 2015:
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks/24/)
• Open Journals Systems, Public Knowledge Project, Simon Fraser
University Library (As of March 2, 2015: https://pkp.sfu.ca/ and
https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ojs-usage/ojs-stats/ )
• Park, Ji-Hong and Jiyoung Shim, “Exploring How Library Publishing
Services Facilitate Scholarly Communication,” Journal of Scholarly
Publishing, Vol. 43, No. 1, October 2011
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scp.2011.0038)
• Skinner, Katherine, Sarah Lippincott, Julie Speer, Tyler Walters,
“Library-as-Publisher: Capacity Building for the Library Publishing
Subfield,” Journal of Electronic Publishing, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring
2014 (http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0017.207)
Editor's Notes
Library as Publisher: New Publishing Ecosystems
Presented by: John W. Warren- Head, Mason Publishing Group/George Mason University Press, George Mason University Libraries
Many academic libraries are moving into the publishing landscape, and an increasing number of university presses are now part of their university library infrastructure. The business of libraries and publishers are now intertwined and overlapping. Libraries have been proponents of open access, whereas many scholarly publishers have been wary about, if not hesitant to implement, open models. How are priorities such as funding and sustainability achieved? The Mason Publishing Group, an initiative within the George Mason University Library, provides support and resources to the George Mason University community for creating, curating, and disseminating scholarly, creative, and educational works. Programs and services of the Mason Publishing Group include the George Mason University Press, scholarly communication and copyright, University dissertation and thesis services, the Mason institutional repository (MARS), electronic journal hosting and publishing, and data publication. Planned services include publication of e-books and conference proceedings. This session provides an overview of the current library publishing landscape and efforts at Mason to create and sustain this initiative.
2012 report from the IMLS grant-funded project “Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success” between Purdue, Georgia Tech, and the University of Utah found that over 55% of the academic libraries that participated in the study were interested in or providing publishing services in some capacity
Likely that the figure has grown since 2012.
Source IMLS Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Report
This is a sample of many of the activities in library publishing, not an exhaustive list. Not all libraries are involved in all aspects.
Park, Ji-Hong and Jiyoung Shim, “Exploring How Library Publishing Services Facilitate Scholarly Communication,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Vol. 43, No. 1, October 201
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_scholarly_publishing/v043/43.1.park.html
IMLS Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Report
IMLS Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Report
2011 survey asked 20 of ARL library directors to identify the scenario that most closely matched their vision of the library’s role in scholarly communication in 2025. Four broad categories were
Surviving through Collaboration (shrinking budgets, importance of consortia)
2) Library as Catalyst (increase access to scholarship; protects intellectual property on campus)
3) Librarians Role Reinvented (advanced subject knowledge, expertise in data mining, management, curation, information policy and copyright) and
4) Librarian as Publisher (The library increasingly plays a role in scholarly publishing on campus and with the support of the academic leadership, takes on digital publishing operations as part of its primary operations, reallocating resources to this function).
13 (out of 20) chose #4 and 12 chose #3 (with about 9 directors choosing 2 or more scenarios).
Carpenter, Maria; Graybill, Jolie; Offord, Jerome Jr.; and Piorun, Mary E., "Envisioning the Library’s Role in Scholarly Communication in the Year 2025" (2011). University of Massachusetts Medical School. Library Publications and Presentations. Paper 122.
http://escholarship.umassmed.edu/lib_articles/122
that the future role for the library is forming strategic partnerships with faculty, researchers, and students and assisting with data management and preservation
Source: IMLS Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Report
“Mason Publishing” is an evolution of things the University Library has been doing for a while and a few newer activities and platforms as well.
Branding is important to every University, and particularly a relatively young University that is still establishing its visibility and reputation as a research university.
Technological developments over the past few decades, and continuing today, have been dramatically lowered the barriers to our entry into publishing endeavors.
A variety of different services, products and workflows make up Mason Publishing.
I don’t have any preconcieved notions of what editorial focus the George Mason Univ Press should necessarily have, but it should be aligned closely with the strengths and strategic goals of the university. These are a few of the centers and deparments that seem to hold promise to align an editorial strategy.
Here is one example, the Karsnow Institute’s for Advanced Study- Center for Social Complexity
The Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center (TraCCC) would appear to have promise for editorial projects, such as their Curriculum Develpment Projects. In this case, TraCCC developed curriculum for Border Patroal agents as well as an anti human trafficking awareness training curriculum.
Collaboration with pedagogical practice and with technology, i.e., technology in the classroom.
Collaboration with developments in online learning.
George Mason University Press Board
John Zenelis - University LibrariesJohn Foster – EnglishJames Pfiffner - Public PolicyKelly Schrum - History/Center for History and New MediaPeter Stearns – History, Former Provost
Press contributes advice for informal and publishes formal products.
MPG Services: provides online hosting through library repository software.
Monthly lunchtime meetings for faculty with presentations on acquisition trends, how authors/scholars can market their work, and other publishing-related information -- library/publishing partnership
Explore possibilities for interactive technological simulations, and/or interactive, enhanced ebooks
Conduct focus group(s) with professors on their needs—what kind of content are they looking for, what kind of simulations, etc.
A current example of the future book:
The Elements: A Visual Exploration
Published by the newly formed Touch PressDiscover the 118 elements of the Periodic Table up close on the large iPad screen. Flick to rotate 360 degrees and inspect each one. Then read the element’s story. You’ll learn its origins, how it was discovered, and its significance in the universe. You can even see it all in 3D using 3D glasses (sold separately). The Elements features a live connection to the Wolfram | Alpha computational search engine. So you’ll have the latest data at hand.
http://periodictable.com/ipad/
http://periodictable.com/ipad/preview/index.html
There are numerous new studies on how the Americas were more advanced than historians have commonly reported (historians from Europe and the U.S.).
For example, see Charles C. Mann, "1491, New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus", 2005, pub. Alfred A. Knopf
.
See also for example:
Our Choice, Push Pop Press
http://sigliopress.com/book/between-page-and-screen/
See also the augmented reality: General Electric, Smart Grid Augmented Reality (http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality)
Augmented Reality is in its infancy, and there are only a few examples with books.
Esquire magazine dedicated an issue to demonstrating its use (Dec 2009).
Augmented Reality thus far has mainly been used in mobile applications, overlaying information on the iPhone, for example, showing where the New York subway is, restaurant reviews, etc, seen through the iPhone’s camera with geolocation.
These capabilities are possible now, in one way or another, but have generally yet to be harnessed
For example, The Elements app for iPad has a link to the Wolfram Alpha search engine:
“Beside that is a column of facts and figures, each of which can be tapped to bring up rich detail and current information through the embedded Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine. Tap the Wolfram|Alpha button for gold and it tells you the up-to-the-minute market price, along with a hundred other facts about gold.”
Open video comes to YouTube: to get started, visit youtube.com/editor and select the CC tab
•Every paper is like a meeting; articles should function as conversations
See “Open Utopia” on SocialBook, using CommentPress
http://www.livemargin.com/socialbook/client/user_home.html
Notes: This map shows the journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS) available online at the beginning of 2014. Each year ONLY shows journals with content published in that year. The numbers do not represent the rate of adoption of OJS (many journals only upload back issues without publishing ANY current content, skip a year, or go offline).
Journals are are counted for any given year if they have at least 10 articles published that year. Installations are counted if there is at least one journal in that install that meets the criteria. Any journals not meeting these criteria are NOT included in these numbers.
See: https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ojs-usage/ojs-stats/
Purdue University Open Textbook initiative (as of March 2, 2015: https://www.lib.purdue.edu/publishing/etexts )
Purdue University is pursuing a digital textbook development project:
Faculty volunteers receive a $5,000 honorarium to build an e-text that will replace a current textbook
Textbooks developed with Purdue University Press, are made available in print-on-demand and through an e-text platform named Skyepack
Planned $10-20 price tag for e-text and print component at a low cost as well
Faculty producing these texts have expressed interest in including enhanced materials with the e-text, such as videos, interactive games, or specialized graphics
Discovery tools: Scopus., Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar,
•Google
Readers want more access to more data, coupled with better ability to filter, annotate, interact
–Paper as “just one node” in the research ecosystem, a chain/network of communication
–Connect the conversations
•Products that solve workflow problems
Filtering: 3 levels of reading:
–detailed,
–peripheral,
–of general interest
Develop innovative and efficient modes of delivering content to increase revenue
Make all content as flexible as possible; envision repurposing from the start of the acquisitions process
University press publishing needs to anticipate how learning and teaching are evolving an be able to solve the needs of professors, scholars, and students.
New modes of delivery and content—not the same old monograph, and not an ebook of the same old monograph.
Researchers and students are mobile, with laptops, tablets, smartphones
Faculty and students read journals, but in quick scan, need to access anywhere and any time.
Fewer scholars read an entire monograph– like “just in time” research—what you need, when you need it
Sources of content/search tools include Google, Google Scholar, databases like Eric and PubMed, Amazon and Wikipedia
HASTAC offers a preview of where higher education is going. It is a community of connection where members share news, tools, research, insights, and projects to promote engaged learning. An alliance 12,000 scholars and technologists working together to transform the future of learning.
CNDLS at Georgetown is doing interesting things in digital, collaborative learning:
Ellipsis offers an example of shared, collaborative, social learning.
My Dante: A Personal and Collaborative Space for the Study of Dante’s Divine Comedy
Planned Obsolescence by Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Social Book- (BOB STEIN)
Civic Participation among undocumented immigrants in an age of Deportation, Alvaro Corral, DRAFT
http://www.livemargin.com/socialbook/client/reader.html#bookId=5241fa66e4b02b4c7eafc633&mode=community&chunk=1&offset=27