Purpose
– This paper aims to present a case study of the Kansas State University Libraries open access publishing endeavor, New Prairie Press (NPP). The library as publisher is a growing worldwide movement. Many academic and research libraries see it as their strategic mission to highlight and disseminate the research and creative work being done by faculty and students at their institutions. Topics covered include current activities, business plan development, needed technology and skill sets and migration from an open source platform to a hosted solution.
Design/methodology/approach
– The article presents a case study of one library’s experience of establishing a publishing press – libraries as publishers.
Findings
– This article finds that during the years of operation, NPP staff members have learned much about the role that libraries can play in the evolving scholarly communications landscape.
Originality/value
– This article finds that the continual assessment of value, alignment with strategic goals and funding will be critical to ensure future growth and direction of the press.
Digital scholarship of the 21 st century transcends institutions and borders with its freedom from print and physical locations. This case study reviews aspects of establishing a sustainable digital scholarship center, supporting open access through the institutional repository (K-State Research Exchange-K-REx) and an open access publishing platform (New Prairie Press-NPP) along with other outreach efforts. The Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship (CADS) at K-State Libraries serves our campus community, but digital scholarship extends K-State's impact far beyond Manhattan, Kansas. Highlighting the scholarship at our campus is only one small piece of the landscape. Collaboration on campus with both faculty and students includes working with authors, editors, and site administrators; but our roles in educating, publishing, supporting, and managing open access, including data management, publishing funds and textbook initiatives, have broader implications. This paper illustrates strategies that support all types of digital scholarship and contends that single direct connections to K-State can translate into partnerships which have regional, national, and international reach.
This article describes two serialists who use skills honed in their respective serials departments to show how those skills adapt to the world of e-publishing. The presenters discussed their roles in e-publishing and their respective university presses and library publishing programs. How have their libraries reorganized to provide resources for supporting these new roles? The daily work of an e-publishing librarian was reviewed, including an overview of working with Digital Commons and Open Journal Systems, two e-press platforms. The presenters also discussed funding and sustainability of the programs, and working with open access and subscription titles.
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