On April 15–16 Malmö University Library hosted a network meeting on academic publishing. The Stockholm University Press Team, along with more than forty representatives from close to twenty Swedish universities, enjoyed an inspiring “lunch to lunch”-conference with shared experiences, challenges and opportunities, as well as concrete plans for future collaboration.
Everyone agreed that the network, which had been dormant since the last event in 2015, should attempt to organize annual meetings going forward.
The aim of the network meeting
Sara Kjellberg, Head of the Malmö University Library, introduced by noting the increased interest in and development of open access academic publications in recent years. She emphasized that each and all of our institutions have their own traditions and basic prerequisites regarding publishing issues, and that the purpose of this event was not to compare with each other’s activities but to learn from our experiences, create networks and see how we can benefit from collaborating.
The meeting took off with short presentations from all participating institutions, where they described their current services and some aims for the future. The Stockholm University Press were asked to provide a longer presentation about the collaboration project launched in 2023. The project includes two Norwegian universities, The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø (UiT) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim (NTNU), and the aim is that they can utilize the Stockholm University Press service for authors who would like to publish peer-reviewed open access books.
The meeting continued with engaging round table discussions on various themes, such as quality assessment and peer review, contracts and open licensing, marketing and distribution.
Presentation and study on academic publishing
The second day began with an engaging presentation by Pamela Schultz Nybacka, who is Associate Professor in Library and Information Science at Södertörn University. Pamela recently conducted a study on academic publishing at university libraries in Sweden together with Arwid Lund, Senior Lecturer in Information Studies, including Library and Information Science, which will result in a chapter in an edited volume (to be published late 2024 or 2025).
Based on the Swedish Research Council’s study Research Barometer 2023, Pamela reported that Swedish research publications in humanities 2019–2021 have a high international impact in and above the world average in citation impact. The study also showed that these outcomes are currently not reflected in funding schemes for humanities research or in publishing research infrastructure.
Challenges such as AI
Several challenges were discussed during the event, but one challenge in particular was highlighted, AI. External analysts believe that scientific journals in the humanities will overtake the book format by 2025, however, the biggest challenge is generative AI. Chat GPT, for example, can provide sources for non-existent researchers and works based on accumulated data and speculative probabilities. To be noted is that there is not yet a safe way to reveal generative AI for texts, images and audio.
How do we move forward?
Sara Kjellberg summarized the discussions held during the two days and raised the question about future cooperation. Some areas of cooperation were established, such as issues related to CC licenses and the already existing OJS network. The Open Access Week, Academic Book Week and University Press Week could provide excellent opportunities for all parties to make joint efforts to promote activities and talk about collaboration and further synergy effects.
Everyone agreed that the event had been a rewarding experience and suggested that a new networking meeting should be organized in 2025.
Take part in discussions
Please, let us know if you have any questions regarding this network or would like to take part in discussions on challenges an opportunities on how we can move forward together.
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