First steps for a library publisher: Developing publishing services at UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins library

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to presents the very recent development of e-journal publishing services at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte. In 2011, the J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte created a new unit in the library, the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), which partners with faculty and graduate students in the use of digital and networked research tools to create, disseminate and store new knowledge. E-journal publishing and hosting are among the suite of services offered by the DSL, and we currently publish three journals (https://journals.uncc.edu/).

Design/methodology/approach

This report provides an overview of the context of our library’s decision to begin publishing journals, including a discussion of our university’s becoming more research-intensive, our university system mandating increased efficiencies and sharing research with the state citizens, and the library’s own goals of raising awareness of and supporting open access. Also outlined are the technical and procedural choices made, important activities undertaken to develop, define and publicize the new services, campus response to the service and next steps.

Findings

This report provides detailed accounting of how a large academic library implemented an electronic publishing service to support open access scholarship. Important activities such as marketing communication, policies development and technical/procedural activities are defined and results described. The report provides observation and lessons learned for academic libraries in development and support of electronic journals.

Originality/value

Library as the publisher is a new concept. This report will be of interest to many libraries who are considering offering publishing services and to libraries that currently offer publishing services.

Citation

Kim Wu, S. and McCullough, H. (2015), "First steps for a library publisher: Developing publishing services at UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins library", OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 76-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/OCLC-02-2014-0016