front cover of Accessibility & Publishing
Accessibility & Publishing
Stephanie S. Rosen
Against the Grain, LLC, 2018

Accessibility is about equitable access to resources for all people, regardless of physical ability. Scholarly publishing is about quality and impact — quality of content and impact of research.

Accessibility & Publishing addresses the intersections between scholarly publishing and equitable access for users. This briefing explores how the practices that promote accessibility in publishing can also advance — and potentially transform — publishing itself.

This briefing traces the diversity of activities that currently go into making publications accessible to readers with print disabilities — from retroactive conversion of print into braille and recorded sound, to the more radical incorporation of accessibility standards directly into digital publishing platforms. As scholarly communication is transformed by the shift to digital publishing, building accessible practices directly into the flow of publishing has the potential to become the industry norm.

Accessibility & Publishing offers an essential orientation to a complex landscape for anyone interested in the scholarly publishing ecosystem.

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front cover of Artificial Intelligence In Libraries And Publishing
Artificial Intelligence In Libraries And Publishing
Ruth Pickering
Against the Grain, LLC, 2022
What is the current state of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of scholarly communication? What impact does AI have on the practices and strategies of publishers, libraries, information technology companies, and researchers? What exactly is AI and what are those in the realm of scholarly communication actually thinking about it and doing with it?

This Charleston Briefing seeks to provide some answers to these very important questions, offering both general essays on AI and more specific essays on AI in scholarly publishing, academic libraries, and AI in information discovery and knowledge building. The essays will help publishers, librarians, and researchers better understand the actual impact of AI on libraries and publishing so that they can respond to the potentially transformative impact of AI in a measured and knowledgeable manner.

Charleston Briefings: Trending Topics for Information Professionals is a thought-provoking series of brief books concerning innovation in the sphere of libraries, publishing, and technology in scholarly communication. The briefings, growing out of the vital conversations characteristic of the Charleston Conference and Against the Grain, will offer valuable insights into the trends shaping our professional lives and the institutions in which we work.
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Charleston Voices
Perspectives from the 2017 Conference
Edited by Lars Meyer
Against the Grain, LLC, 2018
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front cover of Charleston Voices
Charleston Voices
Perspectives from the 2018 Conference
Edited by Lars Meyer
Against the Grain, LLC, 2019
The Charleston Conference is an informal annual gathering of librarians, publishers, electronic resource managers, consultants, and vendors of library materials in Charleston, SC, in November, to discuss issues of importance to them all. It is designed to be a collegial gathering of individuals from different areas who discuss the same issues in a nonthreatening, friendly, and highly informal environment. Presidents of companies discuss and debate with library directors, acquisitions librarians, reference librarians, serials librarians, collection development librarians, and many, many others. Begun in 1980, the Charleston Conference has grown from 20 participants in 1980 to almost 2,000 in 2017. From the librarian of a small library to the CEO of a major corporation, they all stand and make their voices heard. The tone is casual, the talk irreverent, and the answers are far from simple. But together, we can find solutions. In this annual volume we have collected many key issues that were discussed in 2018.

TESTIMONIALS
 
“The best library gathering around. I look forward to it.”
 
“The Charleston Conference is an incredibly stimulating venue. I am tired afterwards, but get so many great ideas, network with my colleagues, and learn what is going on. I recommend it highly.”
 
“Charleston is the only conference that is worth attending.”
 
https://www.charlestonlibraryconference.com/about/
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front cover of Charleston Voices
Charleston Voices
Perspectives from the 2019 Conference
Edited by Lars Meyer
Against the Grain, LLC, 2021
The Charleston Conference is an informal annual gathering of librarians, publishers, electronic resource managers, consultants, and vendors of library materials in Charleston, SC, in November, to discuss issues of importance to them all. It is designed to be a collegial gathering of individuals from different areas who discuss the same issues in a nonthreatening, friendly, and highly informal environment. Presidents of companies discuss and debate with library directors, acquisitions librarians, reference librarians, serials librarians, collection development librarians, and many, many others. Begun in 1980, the Charleston Conference has grown from 20 participants in 1980 to almost 2,000 in 2017. From the librarian of a small library to the CEO of a major corporation, they all stand and make their voices heard. The tone is casual, the talk irreverent, and the answers are far from simple. But together, we can find solutions. In this annual volume we have collected many key issues that were discussed in 2019.

TESTIMONIALS
 
“The best library gathering around. I look forward to it.”
 
“The Charleston Conference is an incredibly stimulating venue. I am tired afterwards, but get so many great ideas, network with my colleagues, and learn what is going on. I recommend it highly.”
 
“Charleston is the only conference that is worth attending.”
 
https://www.charlestonlibraryconference.com/about/
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front cover of Library as Publisher
Library as Publisher
New Models of Scholarly Communication for a New Era
Sarah Kalikman Lippincott
Against the Grain, LLC, 2017
Charleston Briefings: Trending Topics for Information Professionals is a thought-provoking series of brief books concerning innovation in the sphere of libraries, publishing, and technology in scholarly communication. The briefings, growing out of the vital conversations characteristic of the Charleston Conference and Against the Grain, will offer valuable insights into the trends shaping our professional lives and the institutions in which we work.
 
The Charleston Briefings are written by authorities who provide an effective, readable overview of their topics—not an academic monograph. The intended audience is busy nonspecialist readers who want to be informed concerning important issues in our industry in an accessible and timely manner.

Why are so many libraries going into the publishing business at a time when scholarly publishing is facing so many challenges?

Publishing, after all, is a complex business, and the trend in the marketplace is to economies of scale and the consolidation of smaller publishers into the fold of the largest. It does not seem a propitious moment for a library to become a small independent publisher.

So why are libraries doing this? How is this similar or different from the services commercial publishers provide? Does it involve offering the same services, or are new models, types of content, and needs resulting in new solutions that suit new players?

This book will help the reader understand the context of library publishing. It also explores when a publishing program is a good fit for a library and provides guidance for defining, launching, or growing a publishing initiative.

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front cover of Library Marketing
Library Marketing
From Passion to Practice
Jill Stover Heinze
Against the Grain, LLC, 2017
Charleston Briefings: Trending Topics for Information Professionals is a thought-provoking series of brief books concerning innovation in the sphere of libraries, publishing, and technology in scholarly communication. The briefings, growing out of the vital conversations characteristic of the Charleston Conference and Against the Grain, will offer valuable insights into the trends shaping our professional lives and the institutions in which we work.
 
The Charleston Briefings are written by authorities who provide an effective, readable overview of their topics—not an academic monograph. The intended audience is busy nonspecialist readers who want to be informed concerning important issues in our industry in an accessible and timely manner.

Why do librarians have so many problems with marketing?

At a time when universities and colleges demand that libraries demonstrate their value and users have so many other options to discover information, it seems bizarre that librarians would be so much against a tool that allows them to engage closely with the very users who are the lifeblood of libraries.

As Jill Heinze makes clear in this lively and passionate briefing, marketing is a tool that allows an institution to assess their place in a market and to communicate value to their users based on the users’ needs and problems. This marketing tool need have no relationship to traditional business concerns, and, indeed, mission- based marketing is now important even to for- profit institutions.

Embracing key marketing concepts and planning, says Heinze, can demand that libraries rethink organizational structures, operations, and missions, but she also demonstrates that this rethinking can be entirely commensurate with the mission of libraries within an educational context.

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front cover of Peer Review
Peer Review
Reform and Renewal in Scientific Publishing
Adam Etkin, Thomas Gaston, and Jason Roberts
Against the Grain, LLC, 2017
Charleston Briefings: Trending Topics for Information Professionals is a thought-provoking series of brief books concerning innovation in the sphere of libraries, publishing, and technology in scholarly communication. The briefings, growing out of the vital conversations characteristic of the Charleston Conference and Against the Grain, will offer valuable insights into the trends shaping our professional lives and the institutions in which we work.
 
The Charleston Briefings are written by authorities who provide an effective, readable overview of their topics—not an academic monograph. The intended audience is busy nonspecialist readers who want to be informed concerning important issues in our industry in an accessible and timely manner.

Peer review is an essential aspect of scientific publishing. Yet, how familiar are most of us with the process of peer review? How long has peer review been considered a cornerstone of scientific publishing and what is it meant to accomplish? With so many changes in the realm of scholarly communication in the last twenty years, has the status of peer review also been challenged? Is peer review obsolete? These questions are fundamental to Peer Review: Reform and Renewal in Scientific Publishing. Publishers, researchers, librarians, vendors in the information sphere, and those who are passionate about science will all find much to interest them in this work.
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front cover of Predator Effect
Predator Effect
Understanding the Past, Present and Future of Deceptive Academic Journals
Simon Linacre
Against the Grain, LLC, 2022

The Predator Effect concerns predatory publishing — it is the first to chart both the rise and impact of deceptive publishing. The author — a scientific communications expert with 20 years’ experience — looks at how predatory journals had become an accepted part of scholarly publishing, reviewing in turn the history, development and impact of predatory journals. The book also puts their rise in context of wider issues such as Open Access and publication ethics. Other issues it addresses include: defining predatory journals, the history of predatory publishing practices, Beall’s List, authors’ motivations and the future of predatory publishing practices. 

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front cover of Preprints
Preprints
Their Evolving Role in Science Communication
Iratxe Puebla
Against the Grain, LLC, 2022
This briefing discusses the history and role of preprints in the biological sciences within the evolving open science landscape. The focus is on the explosive growth of preprints as a publishing model and the associated challenges of maintaining technical infrastructure and establishing sustainable business models. A preprint is a scholarly manuscript posted by the author(s) to a repository or platform to facilitate open and broad sharing of early work without any limitations to access. Currently there are more than 60 preprint servers representing different subject and geographical domains, each one evolving at a different based on adoption patterns and disciplinary ethos. This briefing will offer invaluable help to those who wish to understand this rapidly evolving publishing model.
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front cover of Reading in a Digital Age
Reading in a Digital Age
David M. Durant
Against the Grain, LLC, 2017
Charleston Briefings: Trending Topics for Information Professionals is a thought-provoking series of brief books concerning innovation in the sphere of libraries, publishing, and technology in scholarly communication. The briefings, growing out of the vital conversations characteristic of the Charleston Conference and Against the Grain, will offer valuable insights into the trends shaping our professional lives and the institutions in which we work.
 
The Charleston Briefings are written by authorities who provide an effective, readable overview of their topics—not an academic monograph. The intended audience is busy nonspecialist readers who want to be informed concerning important issues in our industry in an accessible and timely manner.

How is reading changing in the digital environment? How will it continue to change? Are we headed for an all- digital future? Or does print still have a place in the reading environment? Does format matter? What do readers tell us they want? This brief monograph offers librarians, publishers, vendors, and others an overview of these key issues as well as advice on how their institutions should approach the print versus digital controversy.
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front cover of The Scholarly Workflow in the Digital Age
The Scholarly Workflow in the Digital Age
Steven Weiland
Against the Grain, LLC, 2021
The workflow names what is done in the conduct of research reflecting its individual, institutional, social, and technological conditions. It displays the conventions that produce knowledge across the disciplines, and the innovations that enhance and challenge scholarly and scientific routines.  The workflow registers the impact on academic work of libraries and publishing, and their increasingly digital operations. Attention to the workflow shows how the elements of research can be understood and improved, productivity strengthened, and satisfaction in scholarly and scientific careers sustained.

As this Briefing explains, the workflow features planning and structure, and a recognizable sequence of activities. But so too is there room for imagination, improvisation, and serendipity. Science and scholarship are human activities and the workflow in all disciplines reflects both convention and innovation as scholars discover the extent and meanings of their professional interactions with technology. In the digital age the workflow is in a new stage of representing what scholars do to advance knowledge and their careers, at the same time it displays the durability of traditional research practices.
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