A partnership forged between the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida and the Florida State Horticultural Society (FSHS) advances access to current and historical publications of the society and exemplifies an opportunity for agricultural librarians. The Public Knowledge Project's Open Journal System (OJS) was developed by librarians at Simon Fraser and Stanford universities to offer free, web-based publication software that promotes open access to journals and supports editorial workflow and publication needs. Collaborations among libraries and content creators that utilize open source tools like OJS are especially beneficial for agricultural organizations with limited financial and staffing resources. This paper examines the current state of library publishing partnerships with external organizations through analysis of survey data collected by the authors, and shares lessons learned from an example partnership. In this example librarians contributed their expertise in peer-review publishing, intellectual property rights, and institutional repositories to develop a customized online journal site using OJS for FSHS in a manner that reflects the publication workflow of the society. Customized features include branding, peer review, member subscription, full-text indexing, and access to archived issues. Trainings on OJS and digital publication service empower subject-area librarians to serve as points of contact for additional collaborations. Utilizing OJS in partnerships between libraries and content creators enhances the relevancy of the library and subject-area librarians while promoting greater access to agricultural information.
The institutional repository at the University of Florida (IR@UF) was founded in 2006, and the policies have not been substantially reviewed or updated since that time. As the new institutional repository (IR) manager, I set out to create a list of current IR best practices and policies from peer institutions. Once collected, this list would serve as a guide to identify needed updates that would allow the IR@UF to best address the needs of the UF community within the current scholarly publishing environment. The first step was a literature review to identify policies necessary for a thriving IR. I then compared current IR@UF policies, both public and internal, to identify where there were missing or weak policies. Evaluating the size of their IRs, years they were founded, and the types of objects collected, we identified 25 peer institutions. I did an environmental scan of these IRs by visiting their websites, searching for documentation of policies and practices. With the help of our assessment librarian, Laura Spears, I created a Qualtrics survey, drawing from the environmental scan to craft focused questions about policies in four areas: administration, submissions, collections, and other (e.g., theses and dissertations, how related items are treated, etc.). I invited the 25 peer institutions to participate in the survey as a pilot; 15 replied. Using these results and feedback from peers, I updated the survey and sent it to a broader audience, yielding 94 domestic and international participants. Some trends were easily identifiable, such as a majority of IRs being hosted on the DSpace or Digital Commons platforms, and spikes in creation of IRs in 2006, 2011, and 2015. Also present were general trends of how metadata was collected to describe items within the IR, and who set and maintained policies. Initial policies were developed mostly by advisory boards or a library department, while maintenance was primarily handled by a library department or an individual. This qualitative analysis began as a way to measure the IR@UF policies and suggest policy revisions. The results of this research speak to broader implications. It is clear the state of institutional repositories within the scope of scholarly communication is currently under scrutiny, as evidenced by recent articles such as Clifford Lynch's 2017 article, "Updating the Agenda for Academic Libraries and Scholarly Communications," 1 and "The Evolving Institutional Repository Landscape, a Choice White Paper" by Judy Luther, 2 released earlier this year. Recent surveys of the current landscape of IRs look at topics from metadata collection to the creation and maintenance of IRs in Canada, as well as the use of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations for student works in IRs. Within this focus on IRs, understanding the policies of peer institutions is an important factor. My survey provides results from 94 participants, and serves as a case study other institutions can review based on their needs in comparison to peer institutions. The re...
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