Emerging Opportunities in Library Services: Planning for the Future of Scholarly Publishing

Abstract

In 2007, the Columbia University Libraries/Information Services (CUL/IS) established the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS) to explore and provision new research support services for the university in all areas of scholarly communication, including online scholarly publishing. One of six organizations comprising the Digital Programs and Technology Services group within CUL/IS, CDRS assists faculty, students, staff, and university affiliates with their scholarly communication and digital research needs through a suite of services: publishing support, digital research repository, conference websites and video recording, research data management, and more. Nine of its 17 full-time employees belong to a production team comprising developers, designers, and project managers from diverse academic and professional backgrounds, only one of whom holds a master’s degree in library science. CDRS seeks publishing partnerships with a variety of on-campus groups and individuals and embraces partnerships with allied organizations such as scholarly presses and societies as well. A proponent of eliminating barriers to the progress of research, CDRS advocates for open access (OA) publishing models. This is exemplified by Tremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements, the peer-reviewed, faculty-run OA journal now indexed in PubMed, which CDRS publishes. To help offset the OA journal publication costs, Tremor authors pay an article processing fee, although waivers and alternative methods of funding are available. In practice, CDRS’ approach to publishing support is business model–neutral, however,and OA is not a requirement for partnership. The journals program at CDRS has been successful, providing publishing support to 16 journals using the Open Journal Systems or WordPress platforms and interactive tools such as blogs and wikis in subject areas ranging from sciences to the humanities. A strategy for keeping this service sustainable and scalable has been the adoption of a tiered structure based on design and customization needs to control flow. Projects can take anywhere from one week for a barebones installation to over 17 weeks for the Premier service