Conclusion

Community publishing builds communities of practice and shared knowledge and is a great option for people who thrive with full agency and creativity over their work. It builds resilience and solidarity for research networks that do not heavily rely on our institutions, at a time when institutions in the USA are experiencing uncertainty. That’s not to say that even this DIY process does not rely on institutions: in most cases, the examples shared herein are authored by employees of archival institutions, many of them academic institutions. These organizations provide the financial security for their staff to engage in community publishing. They often provide the infrastructure of meeting spaces, platforms, and other research support. I am grateful to all of the institutions who support their staff in participating in whatever research activities they like, and who support the communities of practice that their staff nurture. They are an essential part of the research ecosystem. But right now, it’s good to build resilience and solidarity amongst ourselves as we look to an uncertain future about open, values-based research networks supported by institutions who are at risk of losing funding if they support values-based research at all.

This guidebook was, ironically, mostly written alone, although I tried to follow as much of my own advice as possible. I did a modest literature review, and I made a list of subject matter experts I wanted to consult for the project. I planned to do a round of internal review with the Library Futures Research Network, then a round of community review on select listservs. It turns out that this was a tall order for a single author to manage! I had never attempted to do something like this on my own, without a group of people to split up work with, and it was a real learning experience to go through every single step myself. I chose Google Docs to write in, and PDF on Library Futures’ website and Zenodo as my access repository. I chose Chicago style for citations, a departure from my field’s typical usage of APA. I got stuck after my first draft, but then I had really insightful focus group conversations that helped me figure out how to move through the editing process. Nearing the end of the project period, I decided I had enough feedback to finish the publication. I skipped both an internal Research Network review and open community review. I am open to making changes if any factual errors have occurred that might have been mitigated by a community review.

Thanks for reading!