Library Publishing Workflows

September 2019: Meet the Library Publishing Workflows Team 

October 2019: Meet the Library Publishing Workflows Advisors 

October 2019: Meet the Library Publishing Workflow Project Partners

February 2021: Workflow Diagram Software Options (February 2021)

The Library Publishing Workflows Pain Points series features reflections from our Library Publishing Workflows team and partners on the challenges publishers face in implementing, running, and sustaining their library publishing workflows:

• Library Publishing Pain Points—Quality Control by Vanessa Gabler
• Library Publishing Pain Points—Funding by Sonya Betz
• Library Publishing Pain Points—Scaling Up by Joshua Neds-Fox
• Library Publishing Pain Points—Aging Infrastructure by Jason Colman
• Library Publishing Pain Points—Sources of Chronic Pain Points by Brandon Locke

The Library Publishing Workflows Project Manager Brandon Locke presented a poster that analyzed the pain points reported by our partners at the 2020 Library Publishing Forum:

• Both the poster and video presentation are available

The Library Publishing Workflow team (Locke, Schlosser, and Skinner) published an article about the project in the French language journal I2D – Information, données & documents: “Modeling library editorial workflows to promote open publication of scholarly journals: The American Library Publishing Workflows project” (August 2019).

• The English language pre-print is available on the Educopia website

Project Manager Brandon Locke discussed Library Publishing Workflows and other Educopia projects in the context of library infrastructure:

• Libraries and the importance of infrastructure panel at NISO Plus 2021

Brandon Locke (Educopia), Jennifer Beamer (Claremont Colleges Library), Sonya Betz (University of Alberta Library), and Joshua Neds-Fox (Wayne State University Libraries) discussed the lessons they’ve learned from the LPWorkflows project so far, and how the process of documentation has impacted their program’s approach at Library Publishing Forum 2021:

• The recording of their panel, Working through the Pain: How Library Publishers are Learning from Workflow Documentation is now available!

The Library Publishing Workflows team developed a Workflow Framework to help library publishers understand the broader context of library publishing and compare different workflows.

In the Our workflows, our values recorded panel conversation, representatives of six of our partner libraries—Jennifer Beamer (Claremont Colleges Library), Paige Mann (Armacost Library (University of Redlands), Justin Gonder (California Digital Library), Michelle Wilson (Columbia University Libraries), Sonya Betz (University of Alberta Library), and Vanessa Gabler (The University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh)—grapple with the big questions raised by creating and documenting publishing workflows, including:

• “What role do library publishers play in ensuring high quality fact-based scholarly publishing,”
• “What role do they play in social justice and increasing access to means of production,”
• and “What is the role of library publishing in the Open Access movement and scholarly communications models?”

The Library Publishing Workflows team worked with project partners to document one or more paths that a single journal article or issue may take through the publishing process. These workflow packets include all of the workflow documentation created for an institution, including a: 

1. Program Profile
   A brief description of the library publishing program to provide context for the workflow.
2. Workflow Diagram
   A graphic representation of the major workflow steps that shows the path(s) that a journal issue or article will follow, starting with the moment the library first engages with it, through to the end of active library work.
3. Detailed Workflow
   A document that provides a more in-depth description of each of the documented workflows, including more details and contingencies for each step, information about what occurs before the library encounters the article or issue, and the staff and partners involved in the journal publishing workflow.

• University of Alberta Library Workflow Packet
• Robert W. Woodruff Library (Atlanta University Center) Workflow Packet
• California Digital Library Workflow Packet
• Claremont Colleges Library Workflow Packet
• Columbia University Libraries Workflow Packet
• Ames Library (Illinois Wesleyan University) Workflow Packet
• University of Michigan Library (Michigan Publishing) Workflow Packet
• Pacific University Libraries Workflow Packet
• The University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh Workflow Packet
• Armacost Library (University of Redlands) Workflow Packet
• University Libraries at Virginia Tech Workflow Packet
• Wayne State University Libraries Workflow Packet

A workflow tracks the path to publication of a single journal article or issue from the library’s perspective. Workflows are always changing, so this documentation represents a snapshot of what the publishing process looked like at the time of release in October 2021.

These workflow diagrams are graphic representations of the major workflow steps that show the path(s) that a journal issue or article will follow, starting with the moment the library first engages with it, through to the end of active library work. Included are diagrams from each of our partners:

• This packet includes all 13 journal publishing workflow diagrams from our 12 partner institutions

These tools have been informed by the work we did with those partner libraries, and the experience and feedback the participants gave throughout the project. We encourage you to read through that documentation to get a feel for what those institutions’ documentation looks like, keeping in mind that yours may end up looking a bit different than any of the others.

We have created two types of tools: documentation tools and reflection tools. The documentation tools will guide you in the work of describing your current publishing workflow, while the reflection tools will help you use that documentation to reflect critically on your practice in a number of areas:

• Documenting Your Journal Publishing Workflow
• Diagramming Your Journal Publishing Workflow
• Are Our Values Reflected in Our Workflow?
• Is Our Work Sustainable and Scalable?
• What Standards and Policies Are We Using?
• What Other Documentation Do We Need?