Fulcrum Presents the Next Big Thing in Scholarly Communications ... The Book

By Charles Watkinson (Associate University Librarian for Publishing / Director, University of Michigan Press) <watkinc@umich.edu> and Jeremy Morse (Director of Publishing Technology, University of Michigan Library) <jgmorse@umich.edu>

Agap has emerged between the capabilities of the dominant platforms that deliver electronic books to libraries and the digital scholarship practices in which librarians are observing their faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students engaged. The gap is particularly marked in humanities disciplines where an observed preference for reading in print or downloading PDFs to read offline does not equate to a lack of digital sophistication in research.

Whether they are using their phones to capture images in the archives or building photogrammetric models of archaeological contexts, all humanities scholars are now, to a greater or lesser extent, digital scholars. Few would probably self-identify as “digital humanists” because their interests are primarily disciplinary rather than sociotechnical. However, they are producing rich, multimodal publishable outputs that the print-facsimile format most eBook platforms deliver does not support. The implications of the trend toward enhanced eBooks and interactive scholarly works for libraries and publishers are outlined in the excellent “Framework for Library Support of Expansive Digital Publishing,” created by Duke University Libraries (https://expansive.pubpub.org/). With the support of significant humanities funders in the USA, the ACLS Commission on Fostering and Sustaining Diverse Digital Scholarship is currently working on how to further support such work, with a particular focus on equity of opportunity to do so (https://www.acls.org/digital-commission-sustainingdiverse-scholarship/).

While platforms for online exhibits and non-linear digital presentations have existed for decades (e.g., Scalar, Omeka), humanists have a growing desire to publish traditional monographs that reflect the richness of their research while also getting them academic credit. The impetus to adapt traditional publication modes has opened an opportunity for disruption by new digital platforms developed within universities. These include Manifold (University of Minnesota and CUNY Graduate School), RavenSpace (University of British Columbia and University of Washington), and Fulcrum (University of Michigan). These platforms, developed with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, combine the best features of the monograph and the ecosystem built around it with the new affordances of digital experimentation.

Fulcrum is distinctive because it has been entirely developed within a library environment, making it particularly strongly connected to library systems and values. The platform now supports restricted and open-access collections delivering over 10,000 eBooks from more than 125 publishers to libraries. The platform’s continued improvement and maintenance are managed as a collaboration between the Publishing and Library Information Technology divisions of the University of Michigan Library. The Publishing division, also known as Michigan Publishing, comprises the University of Michigan Press, Michigan Publishing Services, and Deep Blue Repository and Research Data Services. Combining a university press that publishes books, a library publishing service with a substantial journals program, and a research data team into a single organizational unit at Michigan may initially sound unwieldy. However, the integration of historically separate services allows “...they are Michigan Publishing to cater more producing rich, holistically to faculty and student authors whose research outputs are multimodal increasingly diverse and disparate. publishable Fulcrum is a manifestation of outputs that the the strengths within Michigan Publishing, integrating the scholarly “narratives” that university presses print-facsimile format most excel in packaging as books with eBook platforms primary sources and underlying research “data.” While most of the eBooks deliver does not support.” currently on Fulcrum are relatively straightforward EPUBs or PDFs, an increasing minority respond to the needs of authors who want to publish data-rich long-form publications. These scholars come from an expanding range of disciplines. Early adopters include practice-based researchers in performing arts, scholars in interdisciplinary fields like American studies, and creators of data-rich publications in fields like archaeology. Most of the elements that humanists want to integrate into their publications so far are digitized images, video clips, and audio files. However, titles on Fulcrum also include numerical datasets, interactive maps derived from GIS data, and 3D models. The platform’s website (https://www.fulcrum. org/) highlights some examples from various client publishers. Each data object is curated in a Samvera Fedora repository layer as a “resource” with its own identifier and metadata. These resources play within the book using a variety of opensource tools. These include AblePlayer for video and audio and Leaflet for images and maps. EPUB.js is the reader utilized to deliver EPUB3 files and knit together the various resources into enhanced eBooks. The Mozilla PDF viewer enables online reading and printing of the less flexible PDF format publications. Fulcrum is not an authoring platform (like Scalar or Pressbooks) but nor is it just an aggregator platform (like ProQuest Ebook Central or EBSCO eBooks). It aims to place a professional publishing team in control of their own imprint while the Michigan team manages the hosting, including the relationships that ensure preservation, discovery, and distribution to libraries. At its heart is the EPUB3 format, a W3C standard that allows content to be packaged for delivery through traditional information supply chains while incorporating rich media and interacting fully with the entire World Wide Web. If a publisher can create an EPUB3, Fulcrum can ingest it and render all the associated resources. If a new format becomes a feature of scholarship in the future (holographic images, anyone?), Fulcrum should be able to integrate any open-source player into a recognizably book-like object. The modular approach it embodies builds on the opportunities for interoperability highlighted in “Mind the Gap: A Landscape Analysis of Open Source Publishing Tools and Platforms” led by John Maxwell (https://mindthegap.pubpub. org/).

Authors in the humanities have been reluctant to embrace digital publishing because of concerns about the longevity of their work and the degree to which they will get credit. These concerns translate into Fulcrum’s four design principles — Durability and Accessibility (to ensure longevity) and Discoverability and Flexibility/interoperability (to provide credit). The team at Michigan has worked actively with other libraries to advance these principles within the community so that humanists can feel safe in pursuing their digital publishing ambitions. Durability, especially the challenges of curating enhanced eBooks, has been at the heart of a project led by the New York Division of Libraries in collaboration with Michigan to enhance preservation services for new forms of scholarship. This project has recently created valuable “Guidelines for Preserving New Forms of Scholarship” (https://preservingnewforms.dlib.nyu. edu/). These have been developed through analysis of real enhanced projects from UBC Press, NYU Press, University of Michigan Press, University of Minnesota Press, and Stanford University Press by a team incorporating CLOCKSS and Portico. With the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, work is continuing to explore how introducing best practices to authors early can improve the preservability of enhanced publications. Fulcrum’s preservation policy incorporates the findings of this work: https://www.fulcrum.org/preservation/

Accessibility is closely linked to Durability because digital preservation tools can more easily parse an eBook that has been well-described and structured to enable screen-reader software. During the platform’s development, Fulcrum underwent detailed evaluations by Michigan State University’s Usability and Accessibility Research Consulting service to ensure that all its tools and workflows considered Accessibility front and foremost. The workflows to create the EPUB3 format for new titles published by University of Michigan Press on Fulcrum earned the Press the distinction of being the first monograph publisher to achieve Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible status: https://bornaccessible.benetech.org/certified-publishers/. The platform’s accessibility policy captures continued work on making the more innovative forms of multimedia content accessible: https://www.fulcrum.org/accessibility/

The Discoverability of enhanced eBook content poses a challenge for libraries. If there is a print version of a book, this will show up in acquisition tools like GOBI or OASIS and make its way into the library catalog. However, OASIS and GOBI will currently not reliably indicate the availability of an accompanying open access eBook edition. If a book is electronic only and open access (as many interactive scholarly works are), the path into a library catalog is unclear. Because these book-like works have an ISBN, they will at least appear in databases such as WorldCat. Still, the individual components will regularly not be represented unless there is manual intervention by the acquiring library or the vendor is particularly attentive (SirsiDynix has done outstanding work in this space). NYU Libraries, Penn State University Libraries, Columbia University Libraries, and the California Digital Library are working with LYRASIS and Fulcrum on this area. Authors increasingly request usage data resulting from good discovery to bolster their promotion and tenure cases. Providing this is the focus of the Open Access Ebook Usage Data Trust project, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by the University of North Texas Libraries and Educopia Institute. This project aggregates open access usage data from multiple platforms and reports that data to publishers: https:// educopia.org/data_trust/.

While they are in healthy competition for resources and clients, community-led, open-source platforms like Fulcrum, Manifold, and RavenSpace are owned by the academy rather than commercial entities. Ultimately, success is measured by how their services advance scholarship rather than deliver a financial return. This difference in incentives does not mean they are morally superior to commercial platforms. Still, it does enable a more profound commitment to transparency and interoperability (part of Fulcrum’s Flexibility design principle). Because it is engineered to be a modular component of the larger ecosystem rather than an end-to-end solution, Fulcrum actively collaborates with other open-source platforms. Why recreate the wheel when one can boost the success of another open-source product? For example, instead of extending the platform to create yet another option for journals, Fulcrum integrates deeply with Janeway, built at the University of London. Currently, the Fulcrum team is working to develop rich connections with its sister Manifold so that publications offered through the platform can appear in collections offered for sale to libraries. It is also collaborating with Humanities Commons so that individuals with profiles on that social network can gain authenticated access to restricted-access collections on Fulcrum or display usage statistics from their books in those collections.