As Post45’s Technology and Open Access Officer, I am working on a number of projects to expand the accessibility, discoverability, quality, reputation, and impact of the organization’s publications.

These efforts fall into three main categories:

I’ve summarized the projects below. Details about individual tasks related to these broader projects are available on GitHub.

Why am I doing this work?

The issues I’m addressing as OA and Tech Officer are mostly artifacts of the organization’s structure and publication and funding models, which reflect its commitments to open access but also create a number of challenges. Post45 is a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and apart from our book series with Stanford University Press, our publications (the peer reviewed Post45 journal and Contemporaries, a forum for timely clusters of short essays) are independent, scholar-led, and diamond open-access, which means that we collect no fees (in contrast to traditional journal publishing (paywalls and subscription fees) and gold open access (high author fees called APCs or article processing charges)). Since Post45 is not affiliated with a university press, we also do everything ourselves, including many tasks that publishers often handle, from copy editing to registering the journal for inclusion in scholarly databases and indexes; from web design and hosting to establishing publication ethics policies.

Our funding is also minimal. For-profit and university press publishers can distribute the costs of diamond open access across portfolios consisting primarily of subscription journals. Alternatively, many scholarly organizations can subsidize publications using membership dues or income from conference registration fees. Post45 has never charged membership dues or conference fees (with one exception in 2010 for a large conference at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), and the organization is instead sustained by volunteer service by board members, board members’ research funds, and sponsorship by institutions (currently Emory, previously Yale) for web hosting costs and pay for graduate student editors.

These initiatives are major undertakings, but I’m hoping that by sharing what we learn about scholar-led independent publishing, Post45 will be able to encourage and facilitate other humanities open access publishing projects.

Improving Indexing and Discoverability

Based on our analytics data, we know that most of our readers reach the journal through social media, web searches, and direct links (word of mouth, authors’ websites, our newsletter) – not library databases and scholarly indexes. The journal should be included in more scholarly indexes, and appear more consistently in library-based searches.

Currently, my main goals in this area are:

  • join the well-indexed Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and earn a DOAJ Seal, which recognizes best practices in open access publishing.
  • join the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), which includes a discounted CrossRef membership for DOI registration.
  • set up our Google Ad Grant.
  • resolve problems with Google Scholar and MLA International Bibliography inclusion.

More information on indexing and discoverability projects, please see the Indexing and Discoverability GitHub project page.

Updating Editorial Processes and Policies

Post45 has published diamond open access since 2011, but new guidelines and best practices in open access publishing and publication ethics have emerged since then.

Details about my review of our policies is available at this GitHub project page.

Work I’ve completed in this area also includes various internal improvements, like setting up a Google Workspace account and creating an editorial project management workflow using Slack and Notion (previously Trello).

Modernizing the Organization’s Web Presence

Post45 was launched in 2011 as a WordPress site and includes a great deal of legacy code. I’m recreating the organization’s (and journal’s) website using modern web technologies, which should vastly improve site performance, maintainability, and navigation. (Plus it’ll look much, much better.)

Works in progress include:

  • Website redesign: recreating the site with a modern stack.
    • Improving site navigation: we’ve now published enough that older pieces are difficult to find and discover. Better navigation options would help to resurface earlier but still excellent pieces we’ve published. I’ve collated some design references in this GitHub issue.
  • Submissions site: We currently manage submissions via email, which is labor-intensive for our managing editor, and unfortunately, subscription-based submissions/peer review management software like ScholarOne and Submittable is prohibitively expensive. Free open source options are available (free = no software license fee; hosting costs still apply), but require additional work and knowledge to set up and self-host. I am in the process of customizing a submissions management site using the Public Knowledge Project’s excellent open source Open Journal Systems. I successfully tested the software with submissions for the Post45 prize competition & am in the process of migrating the site from Amazon Web Services to a Dockerized Microsoft Azure app (to take advantage of Post45’s Azure nonprofit grant).

More information about these projects is available at this GitHub project page.