Publishing Group Director Catherine Mitchell on the University as Publisher

By Elise Proulx
Publishing Group Outreach & Marketing Coordinator

California Digital Library Publishing Group Director Catherine Mitchell sees local publishing services as key for universities to reclaim their primary intellectual asset – the scholarly output of faculty.
By getting involved in the publishing process early on, as the researchers are creating work rather than after the fact, Mitchell believes that universities and their libraries can better support and drive the creation, preservation, and dissemination of scholarship.

“Despite the daunting complexity of the task, universities must take responsibility for managing their own scholarly output,” says Mitchell, “or risk losing control of that core intellectual property.”

At an OCLC Symposium on the Future of Publishing at the American Library Association’s annual conference in June 2010, Mitchell presented an overview of “The University as Publisher: Our Value/s, Ourselves” (http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=akz63449), outlining the University of California’s University as Publisher initiative.

At the heart of UC’s initiative is UC Publishing Services (UCPubS). A collaboration between the California Digital Library (CDL) and the University of California Press, UCPubS provides a suite of open access digital and print publishing tools to UC centers, institutes, and departments that produce scholarly books. Using a shared resource model, UCPubS enables its publishing partners to focus on scholarship, while UC Press and CDL’s eScholarship handle distribution, sales, and web platform development.

UCPubS not only allows these academic units to take control of their publishing processes, but also enables the work published through the CDL and UC Press to reach a worldwide audience, enhancing the University of California’s standing as a top-tier educational institution.

Read more about UC’s University as Publisher initiative in NextSpace, the OCLC Newsletter: http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/016/1.htm.

The California Digital Library provides digital library development and support for the University of California libraries and the communities they serve.

eScholarship provides open access, scholarly digital publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide.

University of California Press, is among the six largest university presses in the United States and, of these, is the only one located in the West and associated with a public university.
Follow eScholarship on Facebook and Twitter.