2019 Charleston Library Conference

The University of Rhode Island University Libraries publishes six open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journals on our DigitalCommons@URI platform. Our journal publishing program has grown slowly over the last decade, with new services added incrementally as needed. We decided it was time that we assess our journal publishing efforts — to ask editors to identify the successes, challenges, and unmet needs that they’ve encountered in the publishing process. We also wanted to learn from our editors what resources they had found to support their journals outside of library offerings. In early 2019, we conducted three focus group interviews with nine editors and assistants representing all of the journals on our platform. Editors were very enthusiastic about the chance to speak with us and to connect to each other. In this poster session, we will highlight what we learned from our editors… what they value, what they need, and what they want from library publishing services. We’ll also outline our plans going forward to facilitate ongoing conversations among editors and to find creative solutions to help them with their biggest challenges.