Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues

SPARC recently published a freely accessible guide, Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues. Authored by Raym Crow, the guide provides practical help with setting up successful campus publishing partnerships. From the press release:

. . . .The guide is the core of a new Web site, the Campus-based Publishing Resource Center, designed by a panel of advisors from the library and university press communities to support successful publishing partnerships.

Campus publishing partnerships can offer universities greater control over the intellectual products that they help create. But to fully realize this potential, partnerships need to evolve from ad hoc working alliances to stable, long-term collaborations. SPARC’s guide will help partnering organizations t0

--Establish practical governance and administrative structures;
--Identify funding models that accommodate the different financial objectives of libraries and presses;
--Define objectives that advance the missions of both the library and of the press, without disrupting the broader objectives of either; and
--Demonstrate the value of the collaboration to university administrators.

Campus-based Publishing Partnerships will help libraries, presses, and other campus units to structure successful partnerships—and to recognize when collaboration is not the right course of action. The guide reviews current library-press initiatives, describes the potential benefits of partnerships, and provides an overview of the financial and operating criteria for launching and sustaining a successful collaboration. It provides practical guidance on structuring a publishing partnership, including case studies that illustrate key concepts.