Creating RAIDER Publishing: Texas Tech s Path to Developing a Library Publishing Program

Library publishing services are on the rise. Spurred by rising subscription costs for journals and the high cost of textbooks for students, many libraries have drawn on their experience in digital resources to create opportunities for faculty to publish low-cost or open-access journals, monographs, textbooks, and more.

While the Texas Tech University Library has a history of publishing open access journals, it has only recently expanded its library publishing services to include producing affordable textbooks. In this presentation, TTU s Digital Publishing Librarian will preview the new library publishing program, RAIDER Publishing, which aims to produce Refereed, Affordable, Instructor-created, Digital Educational Resources. She will present the library s motivations for establishing the program and the program s scope and goals. She will then outline the path to fulfilling these goals: determining the scope, goals, and product-type; investigating publication-specific resources, such as publication contracts and hosting platforms, and funding models; developing new processes and procedures, such as peer-review, copyediting, and distribution; and navigating new collaborations with the University Press, campus bookstore, campus open educational resources (OER) initiative, and others. The presentation will conclude with an update on the status of the program, problems encountered thus far, faculty reception, and the next steps to getting the program fully up and running.