Report: “With Focus on Supporting HBCU Faculty, Brown Library Expands Access to Scholarly Digital Publishing”

From Brown University:

Fifteen humanities scholars from across the nation gathered in Brown University’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library this week with a shared mission: Explore best practices for authoring and publishing a first-rate, digital-first monograph and leave with the skills to create their own.

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First held in 2022 and now in its second iteration, Brown University Library’s three-week Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Roadmaps institute shares the expertise library staff have developed in digital publishing through first-of-its-kind training for scholars who wish to produce digital publications but may lack the necessary resources, expertise or capacity at their home institutions.

“This institute is so integral to Brown’s mission and to the library’s mission because as educators, we want to share our knowledge with the world,” said Allison Levy, director of Brown University Digital Publications. “Our goal is to rethink the scholarly monograph, and make scholarly work more accessible, in order to effect big change and to see impact across a variety of communities.”

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The Brown University Library began developing its digital publishing program in 2015 with a $1.3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. Since then, Brown University Digital Publications has developed three exclusively digital, open access works authored by Brown faculty and published by leading university presses. Fourteen additional born-digital publication projects are currently in development. 

“We couldn’t do this work without the support of the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services or the Brown community,” Levy said. “In a relatively short amount of time, we’ve been able to develop expertise to make some really big ideas a reality and transform the scholarly publishing landscape.”

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