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Library & Press Collaborative Projects

University presses and academic libraries, as the descriptions below demonstrate, have a history of innovative collaboration on projects ranging from professional development of library and press staff to the creation and preservation of new scholarly resources. Throughout 2004, AAUP and ARL hope to encourage cooperative efforts such as these.

Update: In early 2009, the Campus-Based Publishing Resource Center was launched by ARL/SPARC. With editorial board members from both the ARL and AAUP communities, the Resource Center offers guidance and news about collabrative scholarly publishing projects at presses and libraries across the country.

ARL and AAUP members: Please send us information on collaborative projects at your institution.
Projects are organized alphabetically by institution.

Project Descriptions

University of California
The University of California Press (UCP) works on a number of projects with the California Digital Library (CDL), a university-wide system:

• The CDL has made available about 1500 of UCP’s backlist books in XML format. Most are available only to the UC community. About 300 out of print books are available to anyone. 20 titles are freely available as an experiment. UCP is tracking hits on the electronic editions and sales of the print edition to see if there is any impact. This is part one of a larger project to develop a system for publishing books online. UCP/CDL plans to add several hundred more recent books soon, and are working on procedures for publishing new books online.
  
• The University of California International and Area Studies project involves the Press, the CDL, and the international studies programs on all campuses. Peer reviewed papers are published electronically under the Press's imprint. The campuses provide the content; a managing editor working for the Dean of IAS at Berkeley does the peer review and posts the papers online; the technical support and web hosting are provided by the CDL. There is an editorial board, whose members are approved by the Press's editorial board. The Press will also produce print editions of some collections of papers, using print on demand technology.
  
• UCP is working with the CDL and the Mark Twain Project at UC Berkeley to publish an electronic edition of the Mark Twain Papers.

Cornell University Press
The Library and Press of Cornell have a history of fruitful collaboration. They are working on a major new web portal project, and jointly hosted a 2003 Editors' Forum, as well as spearheading the DPubS project:

• DPubS
  See The Development of an open Source Publishing System
  
  
• Race and Religion Web Portal Project
  The Cornell University Library is in the process of creating a web portal on the issues of race and religion designed to support informed discussion and exploration of the issues of race and religion in America and to integrate the library in the teaching process at Cornell. As part of this project, the CU Library is collaborating with the Cornell University Press on the digitization of some of the CU Press publications on race and religion. In its pilot phase, the project will support two Cornell classes, GOVT 210 and NES (Near Eastern Studies) 250, and full-text access to the first CU Press titles to be digitized will be available only to the students in those classes. The long-term goal is for the site to become a resource for the whole Cornell community, and possibly be offered beyond that, as well. For more information on the project, contact Kornelia Tancheva, Project Coordinator at kt18@cornell.edu.
  
  
• Editors' Forum
  The Cornell University Library and Cornell University Press sponsored an Editors' Forum on November 13, 2003, bringing together Cornell faculty and staff who serve as editors and managing editors of important scholarly journals. The forum was held to introduce editors to a new collaboration of the Library and the Press designed to assist them in journal publishing, both print and electronic. While the forum focused on editors‚ current requirements and the means necessary to address those needs, the discussion also included questions on open access publishing, cost-recovery strategies, and the impact of online distribution on print sales.
  
  The Forum was opened by Cornell Provost Biddy Martin, who spoke enthusiastically regarding the potential of this new endeavor. James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, in his keynote presentation described his own experiences in innovative library/press collaborations at Johns Hopkins and at Columbia. The Library's new Director of Electronic Publishing, Terry Ehling, described Project Euclid and demonstrated journal publishing capabilities available in the Library. Addressing present needs and potential solutions, Vice Provost Francille Firebaugh led a dialogue among three campus editors, University Librarian Sarah Thomas, and John Ackerman, Director of the Cornell University Press. In conclusion, the day's deliberations were summarized and reviewed by Kraig Adler, Vice Provost for Life Sciences.  For more information, contact Terry Ehling at te32@cornell.edu. 

University of Hawai'i
The University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library and UH Press are jointly sponsoring a library prize for undergraduate research. It will carry a $1,000 cash award, be selected by a campus wide faculty committee based on criteria to be selected, and will become a regular part of the annual awards program for faculty and students.

The Library and Press are also co-sponsoring a number of events through the Fall of 2004 in honor of the year of the University Press. Activities include:

• A 3-day brown bag symposium, Sea-Change in Scholarly Publishing, September 21-23, to discuss the changing landscape of scholarly communication.
  
  
• Saturday Morning Authors, a speaker series featuring UH Press authors.
  
  
• Exhibits throughout the Hamilton Library of the scope of UH Press publishing.

Details of these events can be found on the Year of the University Calendar, or contact Sara Rutter at 808-956-2540.

Université Laval
The library director at Laval serves on the board of the University Press. In recent years the library and press have launched a joint initiative on e-publishing, in which the Library acts as the expertise and production center for the electronic version of University scholarly journals, and for the e-book version of some scholarly monographs selected by the Press for diffusion on the Web. This is done through the inter-institutional project and portal ERUDIT (www.erudit.org). ERUDIT has many partners in Quebec, and relies on two expertise and production centers: the Laval library/press partnership, and a Montreal branch, which is an Information Technology department/Press partnership). ERUDIT also offers links to our institutional repositories hosting e-thesis and dissertations and other kinds of research publications.

Louisiana State University
Throughout the past decade the LSU Library and Press have provided complementary resources to important digital and archival scholarly projects.

In 1994 the first digital project done by the LSU Libraries resulted in the CD-ROM version of B. F. French's Historical Collections of Louisiana. The LSU Press was the distributor for that CD. In 1999 the LSU Libraries Special Collections issued a second CD-ROM A Lifetime's Devotion: Photographs of Andrew Lytle, and the Press again acted as the distributor.

In 1998 the LSU Press issued Louisiana Voices: Remembering World War II, a book from the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, a part f the LSU Library. And in 2002 the LSU Press published and issued Under Stately Oaks: A Pictorial History of LSU, a collaboration of the University Archives (an arm of the LSU Library), the LSU Press, the University Commission on the History of LSU, and the Chancellor's office.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online is a collaboration between the University of Nebraska Press and the University of Nebraska Libraries Electronic Text Center (the additional sponsors are the NEH and the Center for Great Plains Studies). It makes available the text of the celebrated Nebraska edition of the Lewis and Clark journals, edited by Gary E. Moulton. Moulton's edition—the most accurate and inclusive edition ever published—is one of the major scholarly achievements of the late twentieth century. Initially offering almost two hundred pages from volume four, the website is currently being updated with 250 additional pages each month, and will eventually feature the full text of the Journals--almost five thousand pages. Also included are a gallery of images, audio files of acclaimed poet William Kloefkorn reading selected passages, and video clips of Gary E. Moulton speaking about his work editing the journals. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online is intended to be both a useful tool for scholars and an engaging website for the general public.
http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu

University of North Carolina
The UNC Press and Library have a an active partnership on many projects:

• The University of North Carolina Press and the UNC library are partners in a one-volume (print) Encyclopedia of North Carolina History, to be published in a few years. The press and library are also partners in an NEH implementation grant to create an Encyclopedia of North Carolina Online, with a beta version a few years away.
  
  
• Representatives of the Press and the library meet once a year at alternating locales to talk about topics of mutual interest, trading off responsibility for the agenda.
  
  
• Press representatives sit on the library's editorial board for Documenting the American South, a web-based database of primary source materials.
  
  
• The library and press hold monthly brown bag lunch meetings on scholarly communications. A joint committee plans the agenda; these meetings have been held for the past 5-6 years.
  
  
• The Press has done the marketing and distribution for several library publications, mostly recently a discography of Country Music Sources.
  
  
• The press and library have a joint working group on Southern Cultures.
  
  
• The UNC library occasionally showcases the Press's books via its display cases at the entrance to the main library.
  
  
• For the Press's 75th anniversary a few years ago, the library mounted an exhibit. The Press also built an online version of the exhibit with links from the Press and the library web sites.

Purdue University
The Purdue University Press is a department of the University and reports to the Dean of Libraries. This has allowed for a better understanding of the entire scholarly information enterprise, and has led to several projects:

• In cooperation with the Purdue Libraries, the Libraries is the host for CLCWeb (http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/), a free online journal acquired by the Press. CLCWeb publishes scholarship in the widest definition of comparative literature and culture in combining comparative literature with cultural studies as "comparative cultural studies."
  
  
• The Press and LIbraries have combined in an ongoing project that makes available to the Purdue community titles for which the Press holds copyright. These titles are available in PDF format and are listed in and linked through the Libraries OPAC.

Rutgers University
The Press and Libraries of Rutgers University are planning a digital collaboration as well as programs to celebrate the Year of the University Press.

• A celebration of Rutgers authors for 2003 with an exhibit of their books, and a program noting the significance of university presses in the dissemination of scholarship.
  
  
• A series of literary salons over the year held in the library where authors of Rutgers University Press books talk about their publication.
  
  
• A digital project conducted by the Libraries to make available a number of out of print Rutgers University Press books related to New Jersey and contribute them to the state-wide Digital New Jersey Highway project funded by an IMLS grant.

University of Tennessee
To celebrate the year of the university press, the University of Tennessee Press and University Libraries are presenting a symposium entitled The Book and The Scholar: Celebrating the Year of the University Press, September 23-24, 2004. The program will focus on the important role of the university press in the academic community. The symposium will begin on Thursday with keynote addresses by Peter Givler, AAUP Executive Director, and Sandra Yee, Dean of Libraries at Wayne State University. They will discuss some of the issues facing today's university press, the significance of a university press for scholars, and propose steps that presses and universities can take to meet the needs of modern scholarship. Sessions on Thursday will include professors, librarians, and university press directors discussing the importance of the university press in academic careers, book publishing trends, and the future of the press. The second day of the symposium will be a writer's workshop for graduate students and faculty about the book publication process. Sessions will cover turning a dissertation into a book, finding an appropriate publisher, and the publication process in general.

Thursday evening, the UT Press and the UT Library Friends will hold an event to launch Tennessee Reads, a book club that will feature UT Press titles. UT Press author Dan Pierce will discuss his book The Great Smokies: From Natural Habitat to National Park, the first book club selection.

The symposium will be held in the Lindsay Young Auditorium at the John C. Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee, and is free and open to the public.
http://www.lib.utk.edu/bookandscholar/

Texas Tech University
The Texas Tech University Library and University Press are planning two projects:

• A digital retrospective of Conradiana, a Joseph Conrad Journal published at Texas Tech;
  
  
• Digitizing and making available online some backlist TTUP titles.
  

Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt’s Jean & Alexander Heard Library and the Vanderbilt University Press have jointly published online Charles Baudelaire: Une Micro-Historie by Raymond Poggenburg. The Micro-Histoire, a day by day chronology of everything Baudelaire did, was jointly published in France and the US many years ago. The print version was over 1,000 pages long and very difficult to use. Vanderbilt converted it into a searchable database, and the author greatly expanded the original edition, which would have made it far too expensive to offer as a print publication. The electronic edition is free.
http://lib11.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib/baud-search.pl

University of Washington
The University of Washington libraries have an electronic repository focusing on resources on Native American culture and ethnography in the Northwest . The repository includes out-of-print University of Washington Press titles in this subject area.
http://content.lib.washington.edu/aipnw/index.html

Wayne State University
The Wayne State University Press and the WSU Library system have teamed up to form a book club that features WSUP books. The club meets approximately once a month and the authors talk to the club members. Club members also receive 20% off all WSUP titles (not only the featured book.) The library' created a small web site for the club:
http://www.lib.wayne.edu/services/bookclub/

Read more about the bookclub and other WSU activities in Featured Library/Press Collaborations.