The desire for global engagement in independent library-published journals

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Authors
Hollister, Christopher
Issue Date
2019
Degree
Publisher
University at Buffalo
Rights
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Abstract
Digital library publishing provides the opportunity for innovative scholars to expand their academic fields with greater international engagement while at the same time undertaking the work of reacquiring control of their professional literature from the global commercial publishing enterprise. Advancements in library publishing venues, platforms, and services align well with the rising open access movement, which is based in part on the ideal of worldwide scholarly engagement. Notwithstanding this lofty goal and the supporting developments in the library publishing industry, the practical barriers of attracting and producing high quality scholarly works from non-native-speaking authors—regardless of that spoken language—remains a significant challenge to the process of international knowledge exchange. The presenter (or convener of this round table discussion) is co-founder and co-editor of an award winning, open access, and library published journal that is well ranked in the field of library and information science and entering into its 13th year of publication. This is an English language journal. To date, it has received manuscript submissions from scholars in 36 countries around the world, and it has published papers from 10 of those countries. Still, the journal lacks the capacity to process many of its scholarly manuscript submissions from non-English-speaking authors; editing continues to be a particularly problematic part of the process. The presenter will engage attendees in potential collaborative solutions to the challenge of international knowledge exchange, not simply for the journal he edits, but more importantly for the benefit of the greater library publishing community.