Building a Foundation for Sustainable Library Publishing: Quantitative Tools & Practical Methods

Abstract

As library publishing programs continue to expand, developing a sustainable framework for onboarding journals and publishing new content has become imperative. In 2019 the Indiana University Libraries open access publishing program reached over 50 journals. To cope with this workload, we recognized the need to develop a methodology for sustainable publishing. Up to that point, we onboarded new journals as soon as the editors were ready, and went to great lengths to accommodate new feature requests and technical changes. Meanwhile, library employees were spending a disproportionate amount of time on publishing maintenance and routine, repetitive editorial queries. To alleviate these issues, we developed a quantitative assessment for our journals that assigned points correlating to the number of work hours a given task took to complete. We then assessed all existing journals and decided on the amount of FTE workforce we could dedicate to journal publishing. This allowed us to calculate the number of points that could be added each quarter, and establish a queue system - any journals projected to exceed this amount would be onboarded in a future quarter. We also created new FAQs addressing common user issues. The strain on our department immediately lessened, and we have already seen a more consistent and sustainable workflow. This system also allowed us to set stable timelines to process requests, and focus on doing more collaborative work with editors rather than automatically completing tasks for them. This session will present a case study of the Indiana University Libraries Scholarly Communication department’s quantitative methods for onboarding and maintaining journals. Participants will have the opportunity to apply our methodology to their own programs, and brainstorm how to develop methodologies that would fit with their own needs and resources. We will also provide time to discuss long-term projections for library publishing programs.