4 minute read
Imprint on Demand
Library’s new publishing arm produces its first book and free digital resources
by Clay V. Trainum
While the world claws its way out of the changes triggered by COVID-19, it’s only natural to look back at how the pandemic affected online learning. Walker Library’s new publishing imprint, MT Open Press, does just that with its first book, Privacy and Safety in Online Learning, released in January.
The book, edited by MTSU faculty librarians Denise FitzGerald Quintel and Amy York, features essays, case studies, and pedagogical approaches that explore how educators managed the privacy, security, and safety concerns that rushed into our lives as we shifted into emergency remote learning in 2020. The collection includes dozens of perspectives from K–12, higher education, and libraries.
MT Open Press is a project started by the award-winning Digital Scholarship Initiatives (DSI) team, which works with various campus partners to build out the library’s digital collections. DSI has been publishing peer-reviewed journals and web projects since 2014, and this foray creates yet another avenue for distribution.
Everything published by MT Open Press is open access, meaning that readers can access the books for free online. Currently, the imprint publishes scholarly, creative, and educational works from the MTSU community and region.
More than two years of work went into launching MT Open Press. It will allow authors to publish digital books and limited print-on-demand versions that will be indexed in databases and search engines, delivering their work to readers around the globe.
Walker Library has set its mission to be ‘your partner in research, learning, and knowledge,’ and I believe this directly speaks to the value of MT Open Press,” Walker Library Dean Kathleen Schmand said.
Publishing models continue to change, and more libraries than ever are engaged in supporting and advancing open scholarship and open access. MT Open Press provides a key mechanism for us to make accessible a selection of relevant and credible publications to a broader audience.”
Working with authors and/or editors, the press provides all the technical infrastructure and long-term preservation services to support the access, discovery, and use of these digital publications.
As MT Open Press charts its path forward, it will be guided by the principles of academic excellence, financial stewardship, and transparency. As such, each publication will be peer-reviewed. The press will operate with financial integrity, seeking to remain sustainable through a variety of funding streams while never charging readers or authors. It also will be intentional in its inclusiveness of meaningful and diverse perspectives and advance the reputation and standing of MTSU in scholarly publishing communities while helping address the need for zero- and low-cost textbooks and monographs.
“We are not in the game to make money; rather, we make quality works accessible, where there are no charges to the authors for our services and no charges to the readers for the online versions of our books,” said Alissa Miller, who serves as the press director. “We practice an inclusive approach to identifying author and reader needs, along with a transparent production process with a team that includes both professionals and graduate students. We are looking to improve our methods through each book that we publish.
Library presses are different from commercial and other academic presses,” Miller added. “We make the differences clear when we talk to prospective authors. The author-publisher relationship match has to make sense to the author who is looking for a venue to publish their work.
One member of the MT Open Press team is Emma Sullivan, a former student worker for the library who has since returned to become the library’s digital publishing manager.
“Putting together a book is a lot more work than you think it is,” Sullivan said. “In the process of putting it together, each of us on the team would pick up different errors and issues while editing, and this first book would not have been as great as it is without all of our efforts and individual contributions. We’re looking forward to working with more authors. Publishing scholarly material with fellow MTSU faculty and staff is a rewarding part of our job.”
The next book to come out of the MT Open Press, slated for fall 2023, will focus on intercultural competencies in faculty-led study abroad programs. Later this year, MT Open Press will launch a call for proposals as it continues to build its offerings.
More aout MT Open Press
Visit https://openpress.mtsu.edu
Read Privacy and Safety in Online Learning at https://doi.org/10.56638/mtopb00123
Want to help? Consider a donation by contacting kathleen.schmand@mtsu.edu
