Open Publishing, Support, and Open Infrastructure

introducing & contextualizing my career, labour, and expertise in ten sweet minutes

Mike Nason
Open Scholarship & Publishing Librarian
Research Celebration week, 2025

Index

Index

Index

Index

Index

CDS Publishing Services & Journal Hosting 

Over the course of the last year, it has been a pleasure to work closely with the UNB journal Acadiensis, as the update their web presence and pivot to fully digital publishing workflows. Theirs is a long-standing (25+ year) relationship with CDS.

conferences.lib.unb.ca

Proceedings

monographs.lib.unb.ca

Acadiensis press

Student journals

studentjournals.lib.unb.ca

Open scholarship & publishing support 

advocacy 101

Navigating modern academic publishing isn't super easy. There's open access mandates. There's an often broad – albeit just as often false – impression that open access is supposed to cost researchers money. There's rising Author Processing Charges. So-called "predatory journals", solicitation, fake publications, an enormous range of publishers (from the independent, not-for-profits to the toweringly-wealthy oligopolies) and copyright/licensing concerns. Let's not forget economic downturns, trade wars, and a broadly thoughtless push for GenAI to dismantle reality.

• advocating for authors to retain their rights

• navigating publisher policies & publishing options

• understanding open access, apcs, and mandates

• unpacking esoteric language and publisher workflows

• Working to ensure research is as available as possible

libraries support researchers

• your work is your work until you decide otherwise

• navigating publisher policies & publishing options

• understanding open access, apcs, and mandates

• unpacking esoteric language and publisher workflows

• Working to ensure research is as available as possible

libraries support researchers

• your work is your work until you decide otherwise

• researchers ought to publish with intention

• understanding open access, apcs, and mandates

• unpacking esoteric language and publisher workflows

• Working to ensure research is as available as possible

libraries support researchers

• your work is your work until you decide otherwise

• researchers ought to publish with intention

• OA doesn't have to cost money, but the tradeoff is time

• unpacking esoteric language and publisher workflows

• Working to ensure research is as available as possible

libraries support researchers

• your work is your work until you decide otherwise

• researchers ought to publish with intention

• OA doesn't have to cost money, but the tradeoff is time

• It's hard find/understand your options... we can help

• Working to ensure research is as available as possible

libraries support researchers

• your work is your work until you decide otherwise

• researchers ought to publish with intention

• OA doesn't have to cost money, but the tradeoff is time

• It's hard find/understand your options... we can help

• is your work as available as you think it is?

libraries support researchers

It's also not not worth the sidebar to suggest that relegating most of publishing literacy to discipline-based folk wisdom is definitely not sufficient education for the next generation of researchers and scholars.

Graduate students must grasp the workings of the industry that distributes their work. 

repositories

self archiving

When you need to make your work available, you can nearly always store a version of it in our institutional repository. I can help you find out which versions you can post here. 

It is not just for articles. We have: 

• theses/dissertations
• reports
• posters
• slide decks
• proceedings
• and many other types of works...

self archiving

We've had a lot of uptake, in particular, from folks running research institutes who want a consistent and backed-up place to store their publications, reports, and other materials. And DataNB (formerly NBIRDT), in particular, have really embraced the repo to make their work available. 

For just DataNB, this is ~200 items across 7 disciplines, and growing regularly.

mandate compliance

There is a new Tri-Agency OA Policy for journal articles on the horizon. Based on what we know thus far, you can anticipate the following:

• immediate  OA on Publication

• Required repository deposit

• The introduction of a new rights retention strategy to facilitate easier self-archiving

this why we have a repository and very much what it is for. 

open scholarly infrastructure

Persistent identifiers

Open scholarly Infrastructure

Platforms and systems meant to proliferate, expose, and disseminate scholarly research, metadata, and connections. Founded on principles of open, transparent governance, code preservation, public trust, sustainable financial models, open source, open science, and community cooperation, OSI represents an effort to democratize not only research but information about research.

UNB Libraries are ardent supporters of Open Scholarly Infrastructure across literacy efforts, research, advocacy, and financial support via initiatives like SCOSS, the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services.

Open scholarly Infrastructure

Bespoke services with proprietary technology and closed code not only cost the institution more money, but shackle it to ongoing costs, upkeep, and vendor lock-in. But so much of this data is already openly available.

ideally

This brief blast through the work to which we are deeply committed in the space of open scholarship and publishing has given you some impression as to why we care about this labour. 

So much of the work of this institution is opaque to the people of our province or broader communities of professional practice for which research may be significantly less accessible. 

Open science, open access, open publishing, and open data are a public good that benefits UNB in kind. 

Thanks for your time and no-doubt whelmed attentions.