APRIL 20, 2012
The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is pleased to announce that the University of British Columbia Library (UBC Library) has entered into a major partnership with PKP, furthering a commitment to the development of scholarly communication software. As a result of this agreement, UBC Library will provide significant financial and in-kind support to assist with PKP’s ongoing development and support of its open source software suite – Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS) and Open Harvester Systems (OHS), with Open Monograph Press (OMP) due for release in the coming year.
Brian Owen, Associate Librarian at Simon Fraser University and PKP’s Managing Director, stated, “The SFU and UBC Libraries have a longstanding tradition of working together on many collaborative projects; it is great to have Allan Bell and the rest of the UBC Library team on board with PKP.” Ingrid Parent, UBC’s University Librarian, said, “UBC Library is pleased to participate in the Public Knowledge Project. With Open Journal Systems, PKP has provided a popular scholarly publishing platform that is a cost-effective alternative to traditional publishing systems.” Parent is also the co-chair of UBC’s Scholarly Communications Steering Committee.
UBC Library will be involved with the development of PKP software, including the creation and maintenance of user documentation and related training materials. It will also offer hosting and related support, and perform testing. UBC representatives will participate on PKP’s Advisory and Technical committees. UBC and SFU will encourage cooperation among their respective networks, partners and user communities, and seek further areas for cooperation.
John Willinsky – a Khosla Family Professor of Education at Stanford University who founded PKP at UBC in 1998 with initial support from its Library – declared, “I am particularly delighted to have UBC Library participate as a Development Partner in PKP, given the original incubation of this idea on the UBC campus during my years there as a professor, and the place that its fine Library holds in my own education.”
UBC Library is a high-ranking member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). It has 21 branches and divisions, and is the largest library in British Columbia. Its collections include more than 6.3 million volumes, more than 875,000 e-books, more than 883,000 maps, audio, video and graphic materials, and more than 165,000 serial titles. The Library provides access to expanding digital resources and houses an on-site Digitization Centre. For more information, visit www.library.ubc.ca.
PKP is dedicated to improving the scholarly and public quality of research. With more than 14,000 installations of Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS) and Open Harvester Systems (OHS) around the world, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) has proven that open source software can be a game changer in scholarly publishing.
In September 2011, PKP officially launched a major sustainability campaign to ensure the continued development and enhancement of its open source software suite, and to provide better support for the growing PKP user community. To find out more about this initiative and how your site can become a PKP sponsor, visit the PKP website at http://pkp.sfu.ca.
Contacts:
Brian Owen | Allan Bell |
Associate University Librarian | Director, Library Digital Initiatives |
SFU Library | UBC Library |
Tel: 778-782-7095 | Tel: 604-827-4830 |
E-mail: brian_owen(at)sfu.ca | E-mail: allan.bell(at)ubc.ca |