Spring 2016 Scholarly Publishing Series

The Scholarly Publishing Series aimed to cultivate a campus-wide conversation about today’s publishing landscape, in particular the way in which graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty approach publishing decisions.
Sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, UW-Madison Libraries and the Office of the Provost.

Featured Event

Changing Models of Scholarly Publishing:
Why Should Authors, Librarians, and Administrators Care?
Charles Watkinson, Associate University Librarian for Publishing at University of Michigan Libraries and Director of University of Michigan Press.

Maturing technologies and financial pressures are driving experimentation around traditional models of scholarly publishing. While such innovations have often originated in science, technology, and medical fields, transformation is being experienced across the whole landscape. For example, several high profile projects in North America and Europe are exploring the potential of flipped publishing models for long form digital scholarship in the humanities and qualitative sciences. Although the mechanisms proposed for achieving it vary, the “big idea” is that the costs of publishing should be borne by the producer (author, institution, government agency) rather than the consumer. Such a system could offer economic advantages to publishers and libraries and theoretically better aligns funding responsibility with beneficiaries. However, the incentives for the authors themselves to engage with a flipped model are poorly defined, administrators are concerned about the financial implications, and librarians are struggling to identify how they add value in this new ecosystem.

This presentation suggests ways to better align the benefits of open access with the interests of those who care about scholarly publishing and explores some implications for the design of new publishing programs and platforms. Initiatives underway at Michigan Publishing, the publishing division of the University of Michigan Library which includes a university press, are described (several are supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and are put in the context of other national and international experiments in open access publishing, including an important initiative from within the Liberal Arts College community, the Lever Press.

Charles Watkinson is Director of University of Michigan Press and Associate University Librarian for Publishing. As head of the publishing division of the University of Michigan Library (also known as Michigan Publishing) he is responsible for a disciplinarily-focused university press, a publishing services unit responsive to the needs of the parent university, and the institutional repository Deep Blue. Prior to moving to Michigan in 2014, Charles was head of Scholarly Publishing Services in Purdue University Libraries and Director of Purdue University Press. An archaeologist by training, he has also worked as Director of Publications at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Topical Events

Journal Impact Factors and Citation Analysis: Ranking of Journals and Articles
Learn about the different measures for ranking journals and how to find them such as the Eigenfactor, SJR Indicators, and JCR Impact factors. Also learn how to analyze citations as well as find the h-index of an author, a measure of his or her research output. These measures can help in targeting journals for publication, authors for collaboration and research partnerships, as well as tracking your own impact on the scholarly world.

Writing Book Reviews for Publication
If writing a critical book review for publication or coursework is on your docket, don’t miss this workshop! We’ll discuss how to read a text critically, develop evaluation criteria, structure the review, and ensure appropriate tone and style.  This workshop is intended for graduate students in all disciplines.

Wednesday, February 24
Publishing in the Humanities: Projects, Proposals, Pragmatics
3:00-5:00 pm (refreshments available by 2:45 pm)
Banquet Room, University Club Building (lower level)
Join us for a discussion of the state of academic publishing in the humanities and the process of working with a university press—from project to proposal to publication. The workshop will include brief presentations from Eric Zinner (Associate Director & Editor-in-Chief at NYU Press) and UW-Madison faculty members Ron Radano (Music and African Languages & Literature) and Pernille Ipsen (Gender & Women’s Studies and History). Moderated by Susan Stanford Friedman (Director, Institute for Research in the Humanities). Space is limited. Please RSVP to rsvp@humanities.wisc.edu.

Tuesday, March 1
Copyright, Fair Use & Authors’ Rights
Noon-1:00 pm
105 Steenbock Library
Concerned about copyright issues? Do you always need permission to use copyrighted material in your thesis or dissertation? Do you automatically sign publishing agreements without reading the fine print? This session will address common copyright, fair use and authors’ rights issues. Please register here.

To be notified of events by email as they are confirmed, email scholcomm@library.wisc.edu with your contact information.