Jasmine Mulliken, Journals and Digital Program Manager at Stanford University Press, reports on visiting Johns Hopkins University Press

Me and SUP

My publishing career started in 2016 at Stanford University Press (SUP), where I was hired to work on its new digital publishing initiative. I learned right away that my position, then Digital Production Associate, had no equivalent at other presses and that the work we were publishing with Mellon Foundation funding was wildly unique. SUP was doing some weird, experimental, and brave things, and thereby urging tenure and review committees to begin acknowledging the kind of work I had previously been attempting as an early-career Joyce scholar. Working on SUP’s digital initiative was exciting and fulfilling because it meant, rather than repeatedly failing to convince English departments I would be a good hire despite my digital research agenda, I would be helping scholars with similar projects advance their careers because of those innovative approaches to scholarship. Now as the digital initiative sees less volume with the end of the Mellon funding, and as SUP ventures into journals publishing using the subscribe to open (S2O) model, I am taking on a new challenge as the press’s inaugural Journals and Digital Program Manager.

JHUP

One of the S2O model’s earliest advocates and developers, and one of its most recent success stories, Johns Hopkins University Press offered the perfect environment for my Week in Residence.

JHUP director Barbara Kline Pope, and my key point-person Wendy Queen—at the time Director of Project MUSE and also the Press’s new Chief Transformation Officer—organized an array of one-on-ones and group discussions (18 mostly in-person meetings, 3 lunches, 1 tour-and-drinks) spanning five days. They even allowed me to present my own work on SUP’s digital initiative, and a majority of the press attended in person and on Zoom, contributing to a lively discussion. Our meetings each day focused on various facets of journals, MUSE, open access, and AI. The topics were as wide-ranging as the Baltimore weather that first week of April, but the interweaving threads revealed a climate of collegiality, care, and passion for all aspects of publishing.

Journals

JHUP’s journals department boasts a staff of 23 dedicated individuals who manage 110 of their own journals, the memberships for 30 different associations, and fulfillment and customer service for their own and 7 other university presses’ offerings. Over the course of several insightful meetings held with the department, primarily Journals Publisher Bill Breichner, I gathered a wealth of information regarding its operations, challenges, and strategies.

I was awed by not only Bill’s insight, knowledge, and instincts, but also the generosity with which this purported introvert shared all of it with me. He anticipated the questions I didn’t yet know I had and steered those I did have toward useful logical progressions. He even graciously responded to additional questions a couple weeks after I’d arrived home.

Our meetings delved into financial aspects that underpin journals operations. Bill also stressed the challenges of marketing new initiatives such as S2O, which require a keen understanding of customer relationships and potential market responses. In general, his calm insight and experience grounded me as I begin my new role as Journals Manager for SUP but also inspired me to make the most of that opportunity by starting smart, with clear goals.

Project MUSE and open access

Wendy Queen and Barbara Kline Pope were my guides through Project MUSE and open access. Prior to my visit, I had been most familiar with MUSE from my graduate humanities work. I was a regular patron of their offerings—so much so I had not even realized they were almost entirely a humanities-based aggregator. (I also learned what the term “aggregator” means during my week at JHUP!) Our conversations spanned MUSE publisher relations and sales, metadata, accessibility, production, library packages, the importance of sustainable practices, the challenges of managing experimental projects like the Holocaust Encyclopedia, and the utility of templates for efficiency.

MUSE’s S2O work really energized and intrigued me. The model represents a transformative approach in academic publishing, aiming to address the challenges of open access while ensuring financial sustainability. As highlighted during our meetings, this model allows libraries and institutions to contribute to the costs of scholarly content, which then becomes openly accessible once a carefully calibrated threshold of funding is reached. MUSE’s recent efforts to establish this model were built on previous experiences and a Mellon Foundation grant initiated in 2018, signaling a thoughtful evolution of their open-access strategy.

I also learned that my own confusion about different forms of open access was not unique and that many in the open access community are highlighting the need for a clear communication strategy among libraries and the many publishers claiming to offer open access. Wendy and Barbara emphasized the importance of collaboration among various institutions, encouraging the sharing of best practices, and invited me to join the monthly S2O Communities of Practice meeting.

AI

Both SUP and JHUP have increasingly embraced, tested, and deployed some AI tools and policies. Barbara has been clear in her support of responsible uses of AI and the necessity of leveraging these early days to stake a claim within the quickly evolving landscape. Like SUP, JHUP is building and testing its own tools for marketing, accessibility, and analytics, efforts which place our presses in a position to potentially build services that might in the future even benefit other university presses. LLM licensing is also a hot issue for all publishers, and it was refreshing and encouraging to hear Barbara’s perspective on those matters as well.

In addition to speaking with Barbara about AI in almost every one of our meetings, I met with Kevin Loftis, Chief Information Officer, who plays a leading role in these efforts by heading JHUP’s AI work group. Representatives from each department are actively pursuing AI projects and explorations that might benefit their own workflows. While accessibility has always been an important component of JHUP’s digital offerings, especially when it comes to Project MUSE, recent mandates from the EU and impending ones from the US have most publishers strategizing to enact or add accessibility features and workflows for future content and scrambling to develop a means for bringing backlists retroactively into compliance. Kevin and I also compared notes on each of our quite similar and effective AI-assisted alt-text generators. All of my conversations with JHUP staff about AI were energizing and creatively nourishing.

Conclusion

At the end of my own 19-page-long JHUP Residency notes document, I simply wrote:

Conclusions: Energizing

My favorite part of working in publishing has always been travelling, not just because I love running in new places and finding the quirky character of different cities (thanks to Wendy for taking me to Hampden and driving me by John Waters’s house), but because I never fail to, even through my exhaustion, ascend to a kind of energized passion for my job. While I always knew my press was cool for taking on some interesting and necessarily uncomfortable challenges, I now understand it isn’t unique in its pioneering spirit. JHUP was the perfect place to learn how to run a journals program, how a journals economy works, and how presses can embrace AI. Everyone I met with expressed enthusiasm for the task ahead of me with SUP’s brand-new journals program. I felt genuinely inspired by that excitement and returned home with more vibes of possibility-in-newness than anxiety-of-the-unknown. I found new mentors in Wendy, Barbara, and Bill, and I’m so grateful to everyone who took the time to meet with, inform, and encourage me.

Having only worked in one university press, the residency program offered me a chance to expand my understanding of my own career. I had the chance to see my role in the context of a bigger field of peers. And coming from a smaller press to a larger one energized me. I was able to see the fruition of a very successfully run operation, which can serve as a model and a resource. Like a mentorship program, residency establishes new relationships that can be further developed on both sides. It’s an immensely valuable program and well worth continued investment.