If They See Them, They Will Come​: Improving Visibility and Re-use of Library-Published Journals

Abstract

Library-published journals all need visibility in order to survive and thrive. Visibility increases the journal’s standing in the scholarly community and attracts readers, submissions, reviewers, and editors. It’s especially important for niche journals or those that are just launching to take steps to make sure that journal content reaches as wide an audience as possible. The success and visibility of library-published journals also enhances the prestige of the library publishing program and encourages more journals to publish with the library.

This presentation outlines the practical steps that the University of Kansas Libraries' Digital Publishing Services and our editors have taken together to successfully increase the visibility of our journals and their content. Our strategies include making almost all of our journals open access, with machine-readable Creative Commons licenses added wherever possible; adding back issues to the journal website; providing DOIs for journal articles through CrossRef; adding journals and article metadata to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); encouraging editors/authors to talk about the journal/articles at their discipline's conferences and on discussion lists; putting policies on sharing in the SHERPA/RoMEO database of publisher policies; advising editors about working with aggregators, as well as more unusual methods such as providing a venue for editor-hosted meetings of reviewers and other members of the scholarly community in that discipline and offering layout services free of charge.