Program Committee
Mary Francis, Michigan, Chair
Walter Biggins, Georgia
Elizabeth Brown, Johns Hopkins
Jane Bunker, Northwestern
Jocelyn Dawson, Duke
Natalie Eidenier, Michigan State
Mark Heineke, Nebraska
Jamie Jones, Wayne State
Laurie Matheson, Illinois
Committee Statement
Since Chris Jackson’s remarkable address at the 2016 meeting of the AUPresses, the topic of diversity and inclusion has become a stronger and stronger thread through the work of our association. Detroit has its own deep histories of native displacement, immigration, and continuing struggles for racial justice and economic equity. But contemporary Detroit also provides inspiring lessons in doubling-down on community ties to create strength in diversity, and we have drawn inspiration from our host city.
In this program, you’ll find opportunities to discuss ways to make our daily publishing practices and internship programs more inclusive, challenges facing mid-career people of color, how to build cultures of gender equity, and how to make our digital content more accessible. Other panels look at language and inclusivity and ways to apply anti-racist principles to publishing.
Diversity also manifests itself in the world of publishing through collaboration, and the program seeks to highlight ways that we can collaborate—department-to-department, press-to-press, with libraries, with campus partners, with community stakeholders. Collaboration can generate new markets, new technological innovations, new and more efficient ways of doing business and serving our constituencies. You’ll find sessions that help think through the collaborative aspects of everything from cross-departmental work to reaching readers, fundraising to reprinting processes, Open Access to regional publishing, and much more.
As much of Detroit’s vibrant revitalization can be credited to those who have done the work of bridging the city’s future with its rich and complicated past, we too hope to make our AUPresses community stronger by building connections and cultivating diversity in all its forms.
The community built a Detroit Reading List [PDF] to celebrate our host city.
Program
Pre-Meeting Events | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
Pre-Meeting Events
The Case for Publishing Services
June 11, 8:30 – 11:30 AM
Presenters: John Sherer, University of North Carolina Press; John McLeod, University of North Carolina Press (Office of Scholarly Publishing Services)
The core mission of any university press is to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship under its imprint. Increasingly, however, presses are further leveraging their skills and infrastructure by establishing publishing services in order to expand their value proposition and diversify their sources of revenue. A successful publishing services program can enhance a press’s core publishing mission by making the press more financially stable and more strategically relevant to their host university.
Through case studies and roundtables, this workshop will look at services through multiple perspectives, including:
• Building a distinction between publishing services and the press’s imprint
• Modeling different staffing structures
• Developing strategies for soliciting services at a host university
• Templating business models and finances
Presented by a diverse set of publishers who have already successfully undertaken this strategy, participants from presses at any level of experience will benefit from this workshop.
Beyond Likes: Making Social Media Metrics Matter
June 11, 1:00-4:00 PM
Organizers: Erin Rolfs, McGill-Queen’s University Press
Speakers: Samir Al-Battran, CEO, Tweepsmap; Clare Hitchens, Sales and Marketing Coordinator, Wilfrid Laurier University Press; Bailey Morrison and Cameron M. Ludwick, University of Texas Press; Sarah Murphy, Detroit Historical Museum; Hannah Nyren, Digital Marketing Manager, The MIT Press
A decade after Facebook introduced the iconic “thumbs up” button, which has since morphed into a suite of response options, there remains ambiguity about how to draw a line from the number of likes, retweets, and unique views to sales activity. Given the time and labor costs required to fully leverage social media platforms and analytical tools, the need to illustrate their impact on the tangible goals of the press is critical. The aim of this workshop is to tackle the often-raised question of how online engagement influences marketing decisions and sales outcomes in practice rather than theory. Attendees will leave with examples of how peer presses and nonprofits strategically apply metrics, from email campaigns to Twitter feeds, to improve marketing initiatives and inspire sales.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
9:00 AM – 4:00 PM EDP Roundtable
Organizers: Jillian Downey, University of Michigan Press; Kristin Harpster, Wayne State University Press
Our goal is to share ideas, experiences, and solutions with colleagues facing similar challenges, in a casual, friendly environment, and come away with practical information, connections, and inspiration. In the roundtable format we will spend time discussing topics both as a full group and in smaller groups.
Directors Lunch & Meeting
11:30 AM – 12:45 PM Lunch
Get to know your fellow directors at this informal networking luncheon.
1:00-2:45 PM Meeting
The 2019 Directors Meeting will expand on some of the Advocacy tactics identified during last year’s meeting, with a focus on using the AUPresses Annual Operating Statistics.
First we’ll meet Annette Windhorn, the first AUPresses External Communications Manager, who will provide an update on her work.
AUPresses Consultant Kim Schmelzinger will provide an overview of the Association’s Annual Operating Statistics, with an emphasis on how press directors can use them as an Advocacy tool.
Donna Shear (Nebraska), Tony Sanfilippo (Ohio State), Lisa Bayer (Georgia), and Darrin Pratt (Colorado) will each give brief presentations on how they use the Operating Statistics both as an advocacy tool with their administrators and for internal purposes.
Darrin Pratt and Robbie Dircks (North Carolina) will review the results of a recent survey discussing enhancements to the current Operating Statistics data set and ask for suggestions from the floor.
1:00-4:00 PM Journals Assembly: The Future(s)
Organizers: Julie Warheit, Wayne State University Press; Emily Taylor, The Ohio State University Press
Speakers: Molly Cort, RIT Press; Michael Clarke, Clarke & Esposito; Rebecca Welzenbach, University of Michigan Library
We are building our journals programs on the structures and long traditions that originated the form, but what are the potential futures of journals, and what scaffolding will we need to have in place to arrive there? Participate in a workshop to discuss journals innovations to build towards future technology, business trends, and reinvention with your AUPresses colleagues and three publishing futurists.
The ever-popular journal speed-networking and refreshments will be included in this community-building event.
3:00–5:00 PM AUPresses Annual Business Meeting
AUPresses President Jennifer Crewe (Columbia) and Treasurer Robbie Dircks (North Carolina) will provide an update on the Association’s 2018-2019 activities and finances. All are welcome!
4:00–5:00 PM Speed Networking
Get to know your AUPresses colleagues from across presses, departments, and career levels. Fun and thoughtful prompts, treats, and prizes.
5:00–6:00 PM Newcomers Reception
Sponsored by Books International
Get to know other meeting newcomer and your find your mentors. Attendance is limited to individuals attending their first annual meeting and those participating in the meeting mentorship program.
6:00–7:00 PM Opening Reception
Sponsored by Ingram Academic Services
7:00–9:00 PM Opening Banquet
Presentation of the 2019 AUPresses Constituency Award
Honoree: Gita Manaktala, MIT Press
Banquet Speaker: Lauren Hood
Born and raised in Detroit, Lauren Hood is a community organizer and leader. As Founding Director of Live6 Alliance, she helped launch a nonprofit planning and development organization to enhance quality of life and economic opportunity in Northwest Detroit; Hood has spoken and written extensively on preserving community spaces in Black neighborhoods and cities. She currently serves on the City of Detroit Planning Commission, and as an advisor to Detroit Sound Conservancy and Urban Consulate. She previously served as a mayoral appointee of the Detroit Historic District Commission and board member for Preservation Detroit. Through her consultancy Deep Dive Detroit, Hood conducts workshops and designs curricula on community engagement, equitable development and racial justice.
Speaker sponsored by Michigan Publishing
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
7:00 AM 2019 5K Run/Walk
Sponsored by Project MUSE
Organizers: Beth Bouloukos, Director, Amherst College Press; Greg Britton, Editorial Director, Johns Hopkins University Press; Zachary Gresham, Acquisitions Editor, Vanderbilt University Press; Puja Telikicherla, Digital Publishing and Rights Manager, Georgetown University Press
Get your blood pumping with an early-morning informal walk or run before a full day.
7:30–8:45 AM Breakfast
Grab breakfast and network with your fellow attendees. Special breakfast tables will be reserved for informal topical discussions. Breakfast tables will be reserved for the following:
- Production Managers
- Managing Editors
- Mellon Diversity Fellows—stop by and introduce yourselves to the third and fourth-year cohorts.
Breakfast rooms will be available for more structured discussions:
- Journals: Get to know your colleagues in the AUPresses Journals Community
- Library Relations: The editors of the Ethical Framework for Library Publishing (Library Publishing Coalition) will engage attendees to reflect and report on sections of interest—including Accessibility, Privacy and Analytics, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—with the goal of positively informing both University Press and Library Publishing practice.
9:00–10:15 AM Plenary Session
Race and Reader Intimacy
Chair: Kristina Stonehill, Promotions Manager, Wayne State University Press
Speaker: Desiree Cooper
A 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, Desiree Cooper is a former attorney, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and community activist. She is an evocative speaker on the themes of racial and gender equality, reproductive freedom, family-positive public policy and the welfare of women and girls. As a full-time caregiver for her aging parents, she writes widely about women, self-care and reinvention. She is the author of the “flash fiction” collection, Know the Mother (Wayne State University Press, 2016).
10:00 AM–6:00 PM Exhibit Hall Open
10:45 AM–12:00 PM Concurrent Sessions and Collaboration Lab
Financials for Everyone
Facilitators: Brent Oberlin, Director of Finance and Operations, The MIT Press; Lynn Benedetto, Director Finance & Production, Cornell University Press
This session will review primary financial statements, then the participants will walk through a series of day-to-day publishing transactions, resulting in the creation of a balance sheet and statement. Topics covered will include accrual vs. cash accounting; deferred and prepaid income and expenses; capitalization of fixed assets; and the importance of setting reserves.
Foreign Rights and Co-Publishing Trends
Chair: Puja Telikicherla, Digital Publishing and Rights Manager, Georgetown University Press
Panelists: Karen Peláez, Subsidiary Rights Manager, Harvard University Press; Stephen Williams, Rights and Permissions Manager, Indiana University Press; Claire Wellnitz, Director of Intellectual Property and Subsidiary Rights, University of California Press; Ceylan Akturk, Rights and Permissions Manager, Wayne State University Press
[Watch Recorded Session]
Buying and selling international rights is a key component to scholarly publishing, but what really goes on at the London and Frankfurt Book Fairs, and how do those licensed editions actually come about in such a busy marketplace? This panel will gather fellow rights managers to chat about best practices, current trends, and how to maximize your time at a hectic international book fair. Topics will include: tip sheets, how to prepare, expectations around revenue, key clauses in the licensing contract, relationship with agents (exclusive? non-exclusive?) and coordinating metadata and other details back at home.
OA Monographs as Part of the Information Supply Chain
Chair: Peter Potter, Publishing Director, University Libraries at Virginia Tech, ARL Visiting Program Officer, TOME
Panelists: Cathy Holland, Director, Global Publisher Business Development, Digital Science; Brian O’Leary, Executive Director, BISG; Terry Ehling, Director, Strategic Initiatives, The MIT Press
As university presses add more open access monographs to their lists, they face numerous challenges in integrating those monographs into the information supply chain. These challenges include not only issues with general discoverability and inclusion in library catalogs, but also the flow of usage information back to the publisher, funder, and author. Addressing these challenges is possible but at what cost? The move to OA in journals publishing has been expensive, and it seems likely that an equivalent move to OA for books will similarly require significant investment. This session brings together panelists with a range of perspectives on the issues specific to integrating OA monographs into information supply chains. While the focus is on OA monographs, participants will recognize that the challenges described are also ones that beset eBooks more generally.
Journals Production Roundtable
Chair: Joel Puchalla, Project Supervisor, University of Nebraska Press
Panelists: John Ferguson, Journals Production Manager, University of Wisconsin Press; Heather Munson, Senior Production, Editor, University of Illinois Press; Jessica Karp, Journals Production Assistant, Penn State University Press; Daniel Bouchard, Assistant Journals Production Manager, The MIT Press
Join representatives from “small,” “medium,” and “large” journal publishers for a roundtable-style discussion of the ins and outs of journal production. Panelists will give a brief overview of the workflow and staff responsibilities at their respective presses, followed by an open discussion among panelists and attendees. This discussion will visit a number of topics identified by participants in the 2018 journals survey, discussing how each is handled at presses of various sizes, and extend into questions raised by members of the audience.
Frontlist Digital Printing: Who Decides and How?
Chair: Lisa Tremaine, Director, Texas Review Press
Panelists: Jennifer L. Comeau, Assistant Director and Editing, Design, and Production Manager, University of Illinois Press; Ami Reitmeier, Sales and Course Adoption Coordinator, University of Illinois Press; Nona McCormick, Business Operations Manager, Texas A&M University Press
Printing our new books digitally for print-on-demand or short runs allows us to maximize sales and minimize storage fees and excess stock. Join us for a moderated round-table discussion featuring two pairs of university press colleagues—one EDP and marketing and one design and business—to talk about their decisions around frontlist digital short-run printing. How do we wrap our heads around digital printing when the quality sometimes fails us but the method makes sense financially? Who makes the decisions to print digitally and what are the considerations? Is there a way to uphold quality with large digital print organizations? Do readers care about the things EDP complains about? Come with questions, stories, and examples!
Collaboration Lab: On Building and Sustaining Cultures of Gender Equity and Inclusion
Chair: Christie Henry, Director, Princeton University Press
Panelists/Facilitators: Lyndsey Claro, Chief of Staff, Princeton University Press; Dawn Durante, Senior Acquisitions Editor, University of Illinois Press; Gisela Concepción Fosado, Editor, Duke University Press; Ana M. Jimenez-Moreno, Acquisitions Editor, The Ohio State University Press; Parneshia Jones, Sales and Community Outreach Manager and Poetry Editor, Northwestern University Press; Levi Stahl, Marketing Director, University of Chicago Press; Christian Winting, Assistant Editor, Columbia University Press
At the 2018 AUPresses meeting a task force on creating cultures of gender equity and inclusion was formed to assess issues of gender equity in our community and identify priorities as well as opportunities for promoting change within presses and in all of our publishing endeavors. The task force will share some guidelines and findings from the year of research and collaboration.
12:00–1:30 PM Lunch
Speakers: AUPresses President Jennifer Crewe (Columbia) and AUPresses President-elect Kathryn Conrad (Arizona) [Read Conrad’s Talk]
1:45–3:00 PM Concurrent Sessions
Better Off Dead? Or, Backlist Reprints, Are they Worth it?
Chair: Puja Telikicherla, Digital Publishing and Rights Manager, Georgetown University Press
Panelists: Kenneth Reed, Manager of Digital Production, Princeton University Press; Brian Roach, Marketing Manager, Catholic University of America of Press
Many presses have turned to their deep backlist to bring back old titles and reinvigorate the publishing program, with varying degrees of success. In this nuts-and-bolts session on the triumphs (and tragedies) of these projects, panelists will share actual strategies (rights research, file management, contracts) as well as lessons learned on what’s better left in the past. The panel will include a discussion on project finances (university or grant subsidized?) and how the long view of history affects editorial decisions (how much and whether to provide context on controversial publications).
Building a Journals Program: Where Do You Begin?
Chair: Katie Kaefer, Marketing Manager, American Historical Association
Panelists: Nadine D. Buckland, Rights & Permissions/Finance Manager, University of the West Indies Press; Trevor Lipscombe, Director, Catholic University of America Press; Lauren Phillips, Journals Manager, University Press of Florida
[Watch Recorded Session]
Building a journals program can be overwhelming and confusing. Where do you even begin? In this panel, we’ll hear individuals from three different university presses—all in varying stages of journals program growth—share how they’re thinking about bolstering their journals program to help demystify the process. Topics will include acquiring journals and society journals, society relations, and accelerating the growth of journals programs. Make sure to bring your questions.
Copy That: Writing the Best Catalog and Cover Copy for Every Book
Chair: Chris Robinson, Copywriter, Duke University Press
Panelists: Samara Rafert, Publicist and Exhibits Manager, Ohio University Press; Chris Robinson, Copywriter, Duke University Press; Laura Westlund, Managing Editor, University of Minnesota Press; JD Wilson, Director of Marketing and Sales, Northwestern University Press
The fact that copy is brief masks how difficult it is to compose well while satisfying the demands of authors, potential readers, marketing staff, and online search algorithms. In this interactive roundtable session, we’ll address tips and best practices for maximizing the marketing value of book copy, from blurbs to bios: parsing out the differences between catalog, jacket, cover, and web copy; discussing trends in academic and trade copy; defining stakeholders; and streamlining workflow and approval. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own stories and examples, and together we’ll share our creative approaches to writing compelling and successful copy for every landmark study, beloved lost classic, and unprecedented innovative masterpiece that we publish.
Ithaka Library Sales Report
Chair: Roger Schonfeld, Director, Library and Scholarly Communications at Ithaka S+R
Panelists: Jon Elwell, Senior Product Manager of Collections Development and Content Strategy for EBSCO Books; Amy Harris, Manager for Institutional Marketing, The MIT Press
This session will address how academic libraries are acquiring information materials and the greater implications their acquisition habits have on university press publishing. We will discuss such issues as which vendors and acquisition methods shepherd a book to its final library destination; how certain disciplines are performing amid purported declines in their book sales; to what extent a university’s profile affects its library’s book-buying habits; and what share of library acquisitions AUPresses publications have historically held at U.S. universities and a forecast for their share going forward.
Making the Invisible Visible: Creating New Career Paths for Experienced People of Color
Chair: Stephanie Williams, Director Designate, Ohio University Press
Panelists: Gisela Concepción Fosado, Editor, Duke University Press; Parneshia Jones, Sales and Community Outreach Manager and Poetry Editor, Northwestern University Press; Lanell White, Sales and Marketing Director, University of Michigan Press
The well-publicized push for greater inclusivity in U.S. publishing personnel focuses largely on the entry level. While there are several laudable projects designed to minimize the economic and social disparity between people who do and do not enter publishing through apprenticeship, there are no similar projects organized to support professionals in and into management and executive positions. How do experienced people of color engage academic publishing organizations and be “seen” by them as viable candidates for managerial positions that contribute to today’s scholarship? How do people of color calibrate their skills and experience to obtain the next higher job? This session reports on what has worked for some, and points to what might work for others, and discusses pain points on the way up.
Collaboration Lab: University Presses at Home: Building Collaborative Partnerships on Campus and in the Community
Chair: Julie Laut, Outreach and Development Coordinator, University of Illinois Press
Panelists: Dan Williams, Director, Texas Christian University Press; Nate Bauer, Director and Acquisitions Editor, University of Alaska Press; Anne Gendler, Managing Editor/Manager of Design and Production, Northwestern University Press
In a time of shrinking institutional support, lower sales, and challenges to the humanities writ large, it is more crucial than ever for academic presses to increase the number of stakeholders in their work and develop strong, collaborative partnerships with units on campus and organizations in local communities. Focus on developing these types of partnerships accomplishes several things: (1) it fulfills every university press’s mission to serve as a resource to their home campus, (2) it allows presses to actively participate in strengthening the work of the humanities, and (3) it creates an inter-related web of stakeholders at each UP’s home campus/community that raise the profile of the press and sustain the press through intellectual engagement and for future advancement. Panelists will discuss their successes, offer helpful tips for finding these opportunities, and discuss innovative ideas for the future.
3:30–4:45 PM Concurrent Sessions and Collaboration Lab
Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Discussion
Chair: Karen Copp, Associate Director and Design and Production Manager, University of Iowa Press
Judges: Matt Avery, Founder, Monograph; Nicole Caputo, Creative Director, Counterpoint Press; Na Kim, Freelance illustrator and senior designer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Sara T. Sauers, Faculty for typography, book design, and letterpress printing, University of Iowa, Center for the Book
Join the jurors who selected the books, jackets, and journals for the 2019 show for a conversation about the selected entries. The panel will take place in the same room as the Book, Jacket, and Journal show. The chair will interview the jurors about their process of reviewing entries and ask for their observations about the entered work. This panel is intended to open up a conversation about how we design books and jackets, how we evaluate our work, and how we can raise the bar. The first half of the panel will be set up interview-style and the second half will be a mix of comments from the jurors about specific books, jackets, or covers, displayed within the room and questions/comments about the same from the audience.
Making Peer Review Work for You: Best Practices for Fiction, Regional Trade, and Other Tricky Projects
Chair: Ashley Runyon, Acquisitions Editor, Indiana University Press
Panelists: Abby Freeland: Sales & Marketing Director and Acquisitions Editor (Fiction, Regional Trade), West Virginia University Press; Alisa Plant, Director, Louisiana State University Press; Kristen Elias Rowley, Editor-in-Chief, The Ohio State University Press
Not all books are meant for peer review. Fiction, regional trade, and other creative projects have different criteria for selection. This poses issues for editors and presses who are constrained by the peer review process. We’ll discuss how different presses handle non-traditional projects and their creative review process.
“Ripples Across the Pond”: Policy and Funding Environments for OA Books Across the Atlantic and Implications for University Presses
Chair: Charles Watkinson, Director, University of Michigan Press
Panelists: Elea Gimenez Toledo, Center for Human and Social Sciences, Spanish National Research Council; Peter Potter, Publishing Director, University Libraries at Virginia Tech and ARL Visiting Program Officer for TOME; Helen Snaith, Research England
Open access in scholarly publishing is gaining momentum around the world. In a globalized environment where authors and readers cross national boundaries, university presses need to stay alert to the implications of this move—in terms of both challenges and opportunities. While initiatives such as Plan S have focused primarily on serials so far (with major implications for university presses that publish humanities and social sciences journals), policy formation around open access requirements for books is actively underway. (See, for instance, the UK’s Research Excellence Framework assessment exercise.) While North American institutions and funding bodies operate in a less centralized funding environment than in Europe and the UK, they are nonetheless paying careful attention to international trends, while support is growing for initiatives such as TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem). This session brings together presenters with deep knowledge of the international open access landscape to report on the trends they are seeing and reflect on implications for university presses. The focus will be on books but the presenters will situate moves in this area in the context of what is happening in the world of journal literature. Plenty of time will be allocated for feedback and dialog.
Things that Keep Journals Managers Up at Night
Chair: Elizabeth W. Brown, Publisher Relations Manager, Project MUSE, Johns Hopkins University Press
Panelists: Clydette Wantland, Journals Manager, University of Illinois Press; Emily Taylor, Journals Manager, The Ohio State University Press
Back by popular demand, this session is like group therapy for the journals community. Panelists representing small, medium and large sized journals programs will discuss the challenges they face, such as OA mandates, expanding programs, shrinking budgets, competition, discoverability, Brexit, and managing humans.
Sales Projections: How to Get Real or Learning to Love Sales Forecasts
Chair: JD Wilson, Director of Marketing and Sales, Northwestern University Press
Panelists: Gianna LaMorte, Assistant Director and Marketing and Sales Manager, University of Texas Press; Liz Scarpelli, Director, University of Cincinnati Press; Stephanie Williams, Director Designate, Ohio University Press
[Watch Recorded Session]
This skills-building session about sales forecasts welcomes people from any press department and assumes no prior knowledge or experience in sales projections. Numerous benefits flow from the practice of estimating sales, even when imperfect. Those benefits not only relate to sales, budgeting, accounting, and inventory but can also be a fertile way to develop shared expectations between the marketing department and colleagues involved in title selection, planning, author liaison, and editing. In this session, we will answer the perennial question: “What’s a good comp?” and, using real-world examples, reveal strategies and tips for forecasting frontlist title sales based on different forms of information, such past history, logic, and even intuition.
Collaboration Lab: Mapping the Future for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in University Press Internships
Co-Chairs: Sandra Korn, Assistant Editor, Duke University Press; Lucas Church, Editor, University of North Carolina Press
Panelists: Thomas Devine, Human Resources Generalist, Duke University Press; Jenny Tan, Mellon Diversity Fellow and Editorial Assistant at Princeton University Press; Ariel Mokdad, PhD Student in Rhetoric and Composition, Wayne State University; Rochelle Danquah, PhD Candidate in History, Wayne State University
As scholarly publishing seeks to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, student internships remain one of the most important pipelines for encouraging young people with new perspectives to join our industry. Yet at many university presses, uncompensated internships are still the norm, making these positions inaccessible to students from poor and working-class backgrounds. And, in an industry that is 91% white, students of color who do begin working at a scholarly publishing house may struggle to see people like them represented in the staff, or encounter microaggressions in the workplace. This collaboration lab will spark conversation about how to move towards compensating all student workers, what forms that compensation can take, and how to mentor, support, and nurture student interns who may not yet see themselves represented in the publishing industry—particularly students of color, students from poor and working-class backgrounds, and queer students.
5:00–6:00 PM Networking Reception for People of Color in Publishing
Sponsored by Michigan Publishing
If you identify as a person of color, take some time at the end of a busy day to network and share notes.
5:00–6:00 PM Interactive Products and Services Demo
Attend interactive presentations of software solutions for presses. “Super-users” from AUPresses, not salespeople, will demonstrate how they use various products and services with time for questions and honest answers. Presentations will be run concurrently.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
7:30–8:45 AM Breakfast
Grab breakfast and network with your fellow attendees. Rooms will be reserved for the following groups and structured conversations:
Small Press Breakfast
Facilitator: Dan Williams, Director, TCU Press
Staff at small presses are encouraged to attend to discuss issues of common concern.
Creating a Role for UPs in Academic-led Journals Publishing Breakfast
The increased pace of acquisition of both content and infrastructure by commercial publishers can be disheartening for university presses. Several hosting platforms, manuscript management systems, metrics-providers, pre-print servers, and many society- and department-owned journals are now held by a handful of very large publishers. Sometimes it means the systems on which we rely the most are owned by our direct competitors. Come to this lively breakfast to talk about how to reverse this trend and strategize to bring technology, societies, editors, and authors back to the academy. We will discuss efforts such as the Collaborative Knowledge Foundation’s building of modular, open source publishing tools, the development of MUSE Open, and the metamorphosis of Journal of Informetrics (commercial) into Quantitative Science Studies (university press). Particular attention will be paid to discussing the business models at play and how university presses can approach the open access space where much of this opportunity is focused.
University Presses, Libraries, and LYRASIS Breakfast
As university presses and libraries seek to find better common ground and seek opportunities to support common interests together, LYRASIS is emerging as a very useful hub for practical collaboration, drawing on their rich links to over 1,000 member libraries, galleries, and museums. Come learn what LYRASIS has already done with university presses, some of the projects they are developing currently, and solicit feedback on other areas of need they could engage with.
Manifold Users Group Breakfast
9:00 AM–4:00 PM Exhibit Hall Open
9:00–10:15 AM Concurrent Sessions
Journals: Reaching the Reader: Driving Discoverability and Attention
Chair: Claire Eder, Journals Marketing Specialist, University of Wisconsin Press
Panelists: Alexa Colella, Journals Marketing Manager, University of Illinois Press; Meredith Kahn, University of Michigan Libraries; Stacy Konkiel, Director of Research and Education; Altmetric; Rachel Manela, Wayne State University Department of History
While institutional subscriptions are a vital source of revenue for journals programs, academic libraries’ purchasing decisions are based largely on usage statistics and journal reputation, which are driven by individual readers. How can journals publishers make their content discoverable and effectively market to busy scholars? This panel’s speakers discuss discoverability solutions, social media metrics, and other tools for getting your content front and center.
Creating and Using Accessible Scholarly Ebooks: Tips from Those in the Trenches
Chair: Kristin Harpster, Editing, Design, and Production Manager, Wayne State University Press
Panelists: Jon McGlone, Front End Developer & User Interface Designer, University of Michigan Press; LeAnn Fields, Senior Editor, University of Michigan Press; Sile O’Modhrain, Associate Professor of Music, University of Michigan; David Alan Rech, President/CEO, Scribe, Inc.
[Watch Recorded Session]
This practical panel will reveal why a well-created accessible manuscript file is a good file and what it takes to get there. You will hear about accessible epubs from multiple perspectives, including (1) what it’s like to use them, from a visually impaired professor and author; (2) what it’s like to work with authors to craft the materials you need, from an acquisitions editor; (3) what it takes to create systems and structures within a publishing company to create workflows, from a library production developer; and (4) what is the bigger picture of accessible ebooks and publishing, from a workflow developer. In addition, you will come to see, as the panelists have, how a commitment to accessibility in publishing can create benefits for all readers.
OA Barriers to Entry
Chair: Heather Staines, director of partnerships, MIT Knowledge Futures Group
Panelists: Amy Brand, Director, The MIT Press; Sarah Kember, Director, Goldsmiths Press; Ivy Anderson, Director, Collection Development and Management Program, California Digital Library
In this panel, we will gather experts on open access and scholarly publishing to discuss the cultural and political barriers to entry for publishing open access works. While we will address the leading constraints for context, the panel will focus primarily on possible solutions, policies, and innovations we can implement broadly as an industry. We hope to encourage audience participation by collecting questions for the panel before and during the session on PubPub. Our aim is to differentiate OA values and value from the ideology, mandates, and politics around this topic and, in doing so, identify key steps we can take in a coordinated manner to promote and support the open communication of scholarship toward the development of knowledge.
Managing Multiple Job Titles
Chair: Elisabeth Maselli, Assistant Editor, Assistant to the Director, Rights and Permissions Manager, Rutgers University Press
Panelists: Allison Means, Marketing Director, University of Iowa Press; Liz Hamilton, Copyright Librarian, Northwestern University Libraries and Northwestern University Press; Carrie Hudak, Senior Production Editor/Paperbacks Manager, Princeton University Press; Carrie Hudak, Paperbacks Manager, Princeton University Press
Do your colleagues introduce you as a ‘jack of all trades,’ or as ‘someone who wears many hats’? Are you a department of one? Does your business card have three different title lines? Many University Press publishers, from entry level to senior management, and from small to large presses, work in more than one capacity, a necessity in non-profit environments. Managing multiple titles is exciting, but it requires high attention to detail, creativity, an ability to prioritize, and awareness of and ability to use the resources around you. These are all skills that can be strengthened by sharing. To that goal, this panel discussion will allow participants to share tips and tricks for organizing and conquering competing workflows.
The Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship Program: Perspectives from the Third Year
Chair: Larin McLaughlin, Editor-in-Chief, University of Washington Press
Panelists: Lea Johnson, Assistant Editor, Getty Research Institute; Caitlin Tyler-Richards, Mellon University Press Diversity Fellow, University of Washington Press; Jenny Tan, Editorial Assistant, Princeton University Press; Nhora Lucia Serrano, Associate Director for Digital Learning & Research, Hamilton College
To close out the third year—and first phase—of the Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship, the 2018-2019 Fellows will discuss their experiences in the acquisitions departments of the University of Washington Press, Duke University Press, MIT Press, and the University of Georgia Press. The panel will cover a range of topics, from reflections on developing acquisition skills and early career building strategies, to thoughts about onboarding and better supporting marginalized staff. The session will also address the expansion of the fellowship program, and broader efforts to promote equity, justice and inclusion in the scholarly publishing industry.
Collaboration Lab: Let’s Explore (and explode) a Strategic Plan
Chair: Chuck Myers, Editor, University of Chicago Press
Panelists: Eric Schwartz, Editorial Director, Columbia University Press; Leila Salisbury, Director, University Press of Kentucky; Alisa Plant, Director, Louisiana State University Press; Katie Hope, Director of Marketing and Author Relations, The MIT Press
Strategic planning has become a frequent activity in university press publishing. Plans are written for different purposes and audiences. However too often their creation takes a lot of time with little payoff, playing a role in bureaucratic politics, but having little impact on the activities of the press. And yet sometimes they are effective in planning change and in building support for the press among its constituencies, most importantly the staff, who can feel that the press has a direction and they have an important role to play, and administration, who can be persuaded by the plan to allocate resources to the press. So how can we develop a useful strategic plan? In this collaboration lab, we will take a sample strategic plan apart, seeking to learn what makes for an effective plan. What is the goal of a strategic plan and how is that reflected in a strategic plan? What are the characteristics of an effective strategic plan? We will go through each part of a strategic plan, discuss how it is developed and what function it serves, and how it could be done better.
10:45 AM–12:00 PM Concurrent Sessions
Peer Review, Diversity, and Inclusion
Chair: Trevor Perri, Acquisitions Editor, Northwestern University Press
Panelists: Priya Nelson, Acquisitions Editor, University of Chicago Press; Yannik Thiem, Associated Professor of Philosophy, Villanova University; Adriel Trott, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wabash College
Peer review is an essential part of university press publishing. However, as is now frequently discussed, research suggests that conscious or unconscious bias influences the selection of peer reviewers, the peer review reports themselves, and the editorial decisions made on the basis of these reports. Because peer review has a significant effect on hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions in the academy, this research suggests that these biases in peer review also help to perpetuate existing inequities in the scholarly community. With the aim of continuing ongoing conversations about how to encourage broader inclusion in publishing and the academy, this panel will bring together a group of scholars and publishers to consider concrete, productive strategies for supporting increased diversity and inclusion through the peer review process. The panelists will consider questions pertaining to reader selection and countering bias in reviews and editorial decisions. Further, they will consider questions pertaining to how peer review can be conducted in such a way that it encourages not just the publication of a greater number of historically marginalized scholars but also more ethical practices of inclusion and engagement with such scholars.
Making the Ask: Steps to Effective Fundraising
Chair: Laurie Matheson, Director, University of Illinois Press
Panelists: Gillian Berchowitz, Director Emeritus, Ohio University Press; Darrin Pratt, Director, University Press of Colorado; Nicole Mitchell, Director, University of Washington Press
[Watch Recorded Session]
Educational institutions do it . . . charitable organizations do it . . . even public radio stations do it. Let’s do it! Let’s build a development program. But where to begin? Panelists from small to midsize presses will share their strategies, learning curves, successes, and challenges in this informative and practical session. Topics will include articulating the press’s value, defining development goals, identifying allies and cultivating partnerships, working with a development office, and developing donor relations. The emphasis will be on working within one’s capacity to leverage resources and community toward a stronger press.
Altmetrics for UPs: Identifying Opportunities and Challenges
Chair: Amy Harris, Manager for Institutional Marketing, The MIT Press
Panelists: Claire McCabe Tamberino, Associate Marketing Director, Johns Hopkins University Press; Stacy Konkiel, Director of Research and Education, Altmetric; Mary Rose Muccie, Director, Temple University Press; Dennis Lloyd, Director, University of Wisconsin Press
In 2018, AUPresses and data science company Altmetric launched a pilot program with the aim of increasing the understanding and use of altmetrics in university presses. Altmetrics are data from the Web that can help publishers and authors track and understand online engagement with their research. In this panel, pilot participants will share their frank perspectives on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for the widespread adoption of altmetrics across university press publishing programs. Attendees will learn actionable insights related to staff training, website metadata, social media marketing practices, and more that can improve their use of altmetrics. This panel will appeal to both journals and book staff at presses of all sizes, especially those who are involved in the process of marketing, publicity, acquisitions, or otherwise expected to help promote publications, activities, and authors.
Inclusive Editing Practices and Conscious Style
Chair: Angela Gibson, Director of Scholarly Communications, MLA
Panelists: Beth Bouloukos, Director, Amherst College Press; Cheryl Ball, Director, Digital Publishing Collaborative, Wayne State University Library; Jermey Matthews, Acquisitions Editor, The MIT Press; Maisha Maurant, Chief Corporate Editor, Health Alliances Plan of Michigan
The words and images we publish, the publications we acquire, the marketing campaigns we run, and the presswide policies we set all have the power to include or exclude people, their ideas, and their experiences. As publishers, how do we ensure that we are working toward practices of inclusion? This panel will bring together two university press acquisitions editors, one who works in HSS and the other who acquires STM titles, a humanities scholar and journal editor, and a corporate editor to discuss how we can use conscious style to avoid language that reinforces stereotypes and legitimates power differentials and how we can militate against exclusivity in terms of who and what gets published.
What Librarians Want Publishers to Know
Chair: Geoffrey Robert Little, Interim Associate University Librarian and Interim Director, Concordia University Press
Panelists: Gerald Beasley, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian, Cornell University; Jon A. Cawthorne, Dean, University Library System and School of Information Sciences, Wayne State University; Susan Gibbons, Stephen F. Gates ’68 University Librarian and Deputy Provost, Collections & Scholarly Communication, Yale University
While librarians and publishers are natural allies, these two groups may not understand each other fully. In particular, to all but the press director, an institution’s university librarian or dean may be a distant, mysterious figure. But university librarians have a distinct and extremely valuable vantage point over the scholarly communications landscape and insight as to how changes there may affect our work.
This panel will feature three university librarians who will set out some of the things they are thinking about today that impact university press publishing. Topics will include developments in acquisitions and collecting strategies; open access imperatives; the growth of digital scholarship and publishing within libraries; and more. The session will feature time for a discussion of how to advance common interests with the goal of supporting authors, readers, and researchers.
Collaboration Lab: Professional Development/Transferable Skills
Chair: John Warren, Associate Professor and Director of the Masters of Professional Studies, George Washington University
Panelists: Adam Fuller, Senior Programmer Analyst, Johns Hopkins University Press; Gita Manaktala, Editorial Director, The MIT Press; Puja Telikicherla, Digital Publishing and Rights Manager, Georgetown University Press; Katelyn Leboff, Production Coordinator, Cornell University Press and Teaching Assistant, MPS in Publishing Program, George Washington University; Christian Pizarro Winting, Assistant Editor, Columbia University Press
This collaboration lab provides discussion, strategies to employ, and possible answers to the following questions: What are the key skills needed for successful careers in academic publishing in the next ten years? Has publishing shifted from a ‘trade’—apprenticeship, learned mostly on the job—to a ‘profession’—learning and applying a body of relevant skills and best-practices? What is the value of a masters in publishing, an MBA, or other graduate degree? How can diverse voices and perspectives best be integrated seamlessly into the fabric of academic publishing and what can individuals in the profession do to welcome these new voices?
We will engage participants in some of these questions in an interactive format, and will actively seek input and comments from participants.
12:00–1:30 PM Lunch
Winners of the exhibitor prizes will be announced!
Mentorship Lunch Tables
Tables will be reserved for participants of the Mentorship Program and meeting newcomers. The luncheon is a great opportunity for mentees and mentors to connect before the conference ends and discuss what they learned. Each table will be hosted by a mentor, who will make introductions and facilitate conversation. Don’t miss this chance to share your experience with other newcomers before heading home!
1:45–3:00 PM Concurrent Sessions
Federating Repositories of Accessible Content
Chair: Bill Kasdorf, Principal, Kasdorf & Associates
Panelists: Brad Turner, VP-Education, Benetech; Jack Bernard, Associate General Counsel at the University of Michigan; Barbara Zunder, Director, Student Disability Access Center, University of Virginia; Mark Saunders, Director, University of Virginia Press; Elizabeth German, Service Design Librarian, Texas A&M University
The current process for providing suitably accessible resources to students who need them is laborious and wasteful, characterized by manual remediation of often sub-optimal files by university Disability Services Offices (DSOs), and the resulting files are not shared with others needing them at other universities. The Mellon Foundation has just awarded a $1,000,000 grant to the University of Virginia to fund a two-year project to address this problem. The project involves the academic libraries and DSOs at seven leading universities with significant involvement in accessibility, the university presses at four of them (UVA, GMU, Wisconsin, and Vanderbilt), and three major content repositories: Benetech’s Bookshare, the Internet Archive, and the HathiTrust. The aim is to create a system of federated repositories containing both accessible educational resources and suitable source files for remediation. The result will enable DSOs to discover born-accessible files, remediated files, and suitable files for remediation across all the repositories, and university users with documented print disabilities to obtain, through their university library, needed accessible files available anywhere in the network.
Transforming Scholarly Publishing Through an Equity and Anti-Racism Framework
Chair: Cathy Rimer-Surles, Assistant Director for Contracts and Intellectual Property, Duke University Press
Panelists: Gisela Concepción Fosado, Editor, Duke University Press; Melanie S. Morrison, Director, Allies for Change
[Watch Recorded Session]
The AUPresses annual conference has been one of the many sites where conversations about “diversity within publishing” have proliferated in recent years. In many of these discussions, there is a strong tendency to focus on “diversity” (an outcome) instead of anti-racism (a practice). The panelists will discuss what it means to shift towards an anti-racism framework, drawing on panelists’ experiences within and outside of publishing. The panelists will also discuss some of the specific issues that people of color face in our industry. As part of this work, panelist Gisela Concepción Fosado will report back on a focus group research project looking at the experience of people of color who work at university presses across the country. She will also draw from data collected by the Gender Equity and Cultures of Respect Task Force in their recent survey.
Designing Covers for Scholarly Books
Chair: Rob Ehle, Art Director, Stanford University Press
Panelists: Amanda Weiss, Freelance Designer, formerly at Princeton University Press; Justin Kehoe, Associate Acquisitions Editor, The MIT Press; Parneshia Jones, Sales and Community Outreach Manager and Poetry Editor, Northwestern University Press
A designer, an editor, and a sales and sub rights manager will take you behind the curtain of the book cover design process, revealing the petty rivalries, grandstanding, and tortured genius that go into the high stakes world of scholarly graphic design. You will learn terms like “moiré,” “stochastic printing,” “copyright infringement,” and “tantrum.” We’ll be reserving special time this year to discuss digital book production, a technology that would seem to be a special gift to academic publishing with its low print runs and precarious finances, but which comes with its own sometimes steep emotional costs.
The Generative Power of Conflict
Chair: Eric Schwartz, Editorial Director, Columbia University Press
Panelists: Christie Henry, Director, Princeton University Press; Chuck Meyers, Editor, University of Chicago Press; Micah Kleit, Director, Rutgers University Press
We generally think of conflict in negative terms but what if conflict is beneficial? What if conflict is the result of a fundamental organizational design? All publishers are comprised into three core functional units—editorial, production, marketing & sales. Each with their own internal and external responsibilities and constituencies. Conflicts arise when the mission of one or two of these department is at odds with one of the others. This roundtable discussion is an opportunity think through how and why conflict occurs throughout the publishing process and how best to constructively address it in a way that leads to better publications and a stronger publisher. We will begin with a little bit of organizational theory and then offer some examples of when acknowledgement of conflict was a creative good, inviting attendees to share their own experiences.
Collaboration Lab: Building Journal Prestige
Co-Chairs: Clare Hooper, Head of Journals, Liverpool University Press; Emily Taylor, Journals Manager, The Ohio State University Press
Panelists: Anne Duggan, Professor, Wayne State University; David Famiano, Journals Publisher, University of California Press; Kate Kolendo, Communications Program Manager, AUPresses
Scholarly journals are a place for researchers and students to find dynamic conversation and learn about new/emerging ideas and research. Their articles are accessible, discoverable, and a widely used resource. However, humanities and social science journals often struggle to communicate their value outside of the subfields they represent. Unlike the sciences, there is often no impact factor or other metrics available to prove prestige to a university administration. Further, editors are rarely given course reduction for their work, and they aren’t always compensated or recognized for their important role of handling peer review and editing. What can AUPresses do as an organization to work with HSS faculty to increase the prestige of scholarly journals publishing and editing within the academy? How can we help our editors to demonstrate the ‘value’ of their journals? How can we define and measure ‘prestige’ and then build or improve on it? Come to this collaboration lab to build a prestige plan together with your AUPresses colleagues.
Collaboration Lab: Findable, Impactful, Citable, Usable, Sustainable: Criteria for Rigorous Digital Publishing
Chairs/Facilitators: Cheryl Ball, Director, Digital Publishing Collaborative, Wayne State University Library; Joshua Neds-Fox, Coordinator for Digital Publishing, Wayne State University Library
We are a team of publishers, librarians, and digital scholars working together to answer the question: what are the characteristics of excellent digital publishing? We aim to lower digital publishing’s risks for libraries, presses, and scholars alike and to empower ourselves to create digital scholarly projects that are more visible, more usable, universally accessible, and sustainable. We initiated this work in October 2018 at the Triangle Scholarly Communication Institute to identify the criteria for robust, impactful digital scholarly publishing and to transform those criteria into a checklist of questions that would identify standards, recommendations, best practices, and alternatives for each element. The outcome of our work to date is a public document that describes these criteria and standards, and invites comments and further questions. In a collaboration lab at AUPresses, we will share the checklist and invite participants to work with us to enhance and enrich it. We will also discuss specific tools (e.g. Fulcrum, Kairos, Manifold, Omeka, etc.), to investigate how well they enable or support the criteria we identify.
3:30 – 4:45 PM Closing Plenary
The Transformative Power of Publishing
Moderator: Mary Francis, Editorial Director, University of Michigan Press
Speaker: Chris Long, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University
At a time when the toxic culture of higher education threatens to alienate the most innovative and creative scholars from the academy, values-based practices of scholarly publishing can have a powerful ameliorative effect. Christopher P. Long (@cplong), Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, leads an interactive, Twitter enhanced, discussion of the values of community, quality, equity, openness, and collegiality that will give us all a concrete sense of how intentional practices of values-based publishing can enhance the quality of scholarship and enrich the intellectual lives of those engaged in it. Come prepared to engage in-person and online through the conference hashtag: #AUPresses19. Read more >