Plugging in: Insights from the CSE and SSP 2017 Annual Meetings – by Guest Blogger Tim Cross
As I mentioned in last month’s blog post, spring is a busy time of year for meetings. I’m a firm believer in the importance of plugging in and recharging, and my recent travels to both coasts for important conferences within the scholarly and scientific communities allowed me to connect with colleagues, peers, and the pulse of current trends in scholarly publishing.
I was in San Diego in late May to attend the Council for Science Editors conference in San Diego, where as co-chair of the Mentorship Committee along with Ken Heideman, I had the privilege of launching the new CSE Mentorship Program. This initiative is designed to help meet the needs of members seeking opportunities for growth and knowledge-sharing in scholarly publishing and editing. Interested individuals are paired with a mentor who will provide guidance through a combination of group activities, webinars, phone calls, and in-person visits over a one-year period. Feedback and recommendations will be gathered from all participants to make further refinements to the program. I look forward to seeing how the mentors and mentees will benefit from their participation in this exciting collaboration.
At the end of May, I traveled to Boston for the Society for Scholarly Publishing conference. While there, I moderated a session with panelists Anna Jester and Michael Jon Jensen about the evolving needs of publishers in the 21st Century, and the role service providers such as Westchester Publishing Services have in striking the proper balance as a partner with our publisher clients. The session was well received and there were thoughtful questions posed by the attendees.
Conference Topics in Common
There were a number of important topics covered at both meetings, from varying perspectives. The most significant highlights for me were:
- The pervasiveness of piracy and the challenges that libraries and publishers face in fighting piracy, protecting researcher privacy, and streamlining access to content at institutions while balancing concerns for copyright and the potential for data breaches
- The emergence of open access monographs and other innovations in scholarly book publishing that work toward aligning this channel of publication with research and academic journals
- The need for agreed-upon standards and cross-industry collaboration between stakeholders in the management of data repositories and publication, metadata, persistent identifiers, and funding and Open Access requirements
- Ongoing trends in Open Access journals, peer review, publication ethics, revenue models, and other aspects of the scholarly publishing endeavor that continue to be front-and-center issues of importance and interest to attendees
My colleagues and I realize the importance of active engagement with the scholarly community. By having regular conversations, meetings, and involvement at conferences, a service provider like Westchester Publishing Services is able to better understand the challenges and goals publishers are contending with, allowing us to be a more effective partner in helping them fulfill their mission.
If you attended either the CSE or SSP conference, I’d love to hear from you. Which speeches or sessions did you find the most helpful and informative for you? Drop me an email at: tim.cross@westchesterpubsvcs.com to let me know. Also take a moment to visit our Events page to see the conferences Westchester Publishing Services participates in throughout the year, and if you think there are ones we should be adding to our schedule, contact us!
