Electronic access to documents and publications on the European Union: The role of the Archive of European Integration

The Archive of European Integration (AEI) at http://aei.pitt.edu is an electronic Open Access repository and archive for key research materials on the topic of European integration and unification which have traditionally existed only in paper format and have been difficult for researchers to find and use. Factors leading to the creation of the AEI at the University of Pittsburgh are described and a detailed overview of the contents of the AEI and their sources is provided, including official EU documents and a wealth of grey literature about the EU. The role of the AEI in providing access to EU research materials and the relationship of the AEI to other online sources is explored. Projected growth and enhancement of the AEI is described

Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #5: OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association) and the ULS

Did you know that the ULS is the first library in North America to become a member of OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association)? At this month’s Lunch & Learn, we’ll talk about this international publishers association – its mission, how it benefits our publishing activities, and how it helps our advocacy for Open Access to research. We’ll recap the hot topics at this year’s Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing (COASP 2013). We’ll finish by taking a look at “How Open Is It?,” a nuanced guide to the Open Access spectrum developed by OASPA, SPARC and the Public Library of Science that you may find useful when talking to Pitt researchers about Open Access. TOOLBOX TIP: “How Open Is It?,” a guide to Open Access licensing for authors, researchers and librarians

The University Library System, University of Pittsburgh: How & Why We Publish

The University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh began its e-journal publishing program in 2007 and in five years has quickly grown to publish 34 peer-reviewed scholarly research journals. In this chapter, we will describe the rationale for and the genesis of this program to publish new original content, explain how the program evolved, and give insight into what direction it is likely to take in the future. The ULS has built an extensive digital publishing program over the past two decades. Beginning with digitization projects to reformat the ULS’ unique collections, the program now includes well over 100,000 digital objects in over 100 thematic digital collections including photographs, manuscripts, maps, books, journal articles, electronic theses and dissertations, government documents, and other gray literature such as working papers, white papers, and technical reports. The development of the ULS publishing program was driven by a strong and enduring institutional commitment to Open Access to scholarly information. The organization has placed strategic emphasis on leadership in transforming the patterns of scholarly communication and supporting researchers not only in discovering and accessing scholarly information, but in the production and sharing of new knowledge and the creation of original scholarly research. In pursuit of these goals, the ULS has developed a suite of specific tools and techniques to build a highly cost-efficient e-journal publishing program. The ULS provides its publishing partners with a hardware and software platform and associated electronic publishing services using the open source Open Journal Systems (OJS) software developed by the Public Knowledge Project. This platform allows for richly customizable management of all stages of editorial workflow. In addition, OJS sports a number of reader tools to enhance content discovery and use, including multilingual support for both online interfaces and content in many languages, persistent URLs, RSS feeds, tools for bookmarking and sharing articles through social networking sites, full-text searching, and compliance with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Additional services offered by the ULS include consultation on editorial workflow management, software configuration, graphic design services, initial training, online usage statistics, review of all new published issues for metadata quality, and ongoing systems support. The ULS also provides ISSN registration, assigns DOIs, and assists in promotional efforts to establish the journal. Digital preservation is facilitated through LOCKSS. Steps to start up a new scholarly journal are covered. We will also describe common pitfalls to avoid and techniques that help with clear communications and management of mutual expectations between publisher and publishing partners. Quality control is discussed, including careful selection of partners, conducting peer reviews, maintaining academic quality, advising on publishing best practices, and measuring impact. With each passing year and each acquisitions budget cycle, research libraries have more to gain by becoming publishers. By publishing new Open Access content, libraries can not only help meet the most fundamental needs of the researchers they support, but they can simultaneously help transform today’s inflationary cost model for serials. The publication model described in this paper can serve as a guide for libraries wishing to implement similar programs

Model collaboration: university library system and rehabilitation research team to advance telepractice knowledge.

This Publisher's Report describes the collaboration between a university library system's scholarly communication and publishing office and a federally funded research team, the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Telerehabilitation. This novel interdisciplinary collaboration engages librarians, information technologists, publishing professionals, clinicians, policy experts, and engineers and has produced a new Open Access journal, International Journal of Telerehabilitation, and a developing, interactive web-based product dedicated to disseminating information about telerehabilitation. Readership statistics are presented for March 1, 2011 - February 29, 2012

The Library as Publisher (preconference workshop)

Academic libraries are increasingly investing in new efforts to support their research and teaching faculty in the activities they care about most. Learn why becoming a publisher can help meet the most fundamental needs of your research community and at the same time can help transform today’s inflationary cost model for serials. We will explore not only why to become a publisher but exactly how to achieve it, step by step, including careful selection of publishing partners, choosing the right platform for manuscript submission and editorial workflow management, one-time processes to launch a new journal, conducting peer reviews, maintaining academic quality, and measuring impact. We’ll also cover the broader range of publishing activities where libraries can have an impact, including open access monographs, general institutional repositories and subject-based author self-archiving repositories. We will close with a review of tools, services, and communities of support to nurture the new library publishing venture

Altmetrics: Documenting the Story of Research

As the scholarly communication system becomes increasingly diverse, new tools arise that allow scholars to tell the story of their research and evaluate how their work is being used after its publication. The set of tools known as altmetrics have had an impact on journal article evaluation in particular

Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talks

This series of talks focuses on issues in scholarly communication and publishing presented to University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh colleagues by staff members of the ULS Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing. Many of these talks feature "toolbox" tips on how to apply knowledge gained from the talks. Links to recordings of the talks are provided when available. For topics and presentations, see the record for each talk

Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #1: ULS Journal Publishing -- Why We Do It

This series of talks focuses on issues in scholarly communication and publishing presented to University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh colleagues by staff members of the ULS Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing. Many of these talks feature "toolbox" tips on how to apply knowledge gained from the talks. Links to recordings of the talks are provided when available. For topics and presentations, see the record for each talk