Introduction

This guide shares model workflows for academic community self-publishing: that is, collaborative research, writing, editing, community peer review, design and layout, and DIY (do-it-yourself) outreach and promotion processes.

Do you feel the urge to pursue research or develop shared practices that improve your work, but feel unsure how to get started? Or maybe you don’t consider yourself a scholar in a discipline, but you are a curious person who would like to share what you’ve learned about something. Get a group together and publish it yourself! Bring your work in conversation with a community. Anyone can engage in knowledge production through community publishing practices.

My perspective

I am an archivist based in the United States. I have worked in corporate, public, and academic archives; nonprofits; and a small business. My guidance is based in practice and a modest literature review. The six community academic publications I have co-authored include guides for digital archives practice, research on user experiences, and examinations of archival practice involving incarcerated people. The publications did not require developing research software, graphics that visualize complex data, or a mechanism for sharing complex datasets. I did not write them to satisfy tenure or other promotional requirements. While I hope the guide has some relevance across academic disciplines, I acknowledge that the guide is likely to be most useful for librarians and other academics in the humanities and social sciences.

Paper

This guidebook is written from experience publishing texts. The sample workflows described generally have the equivalent of an academic journal article in mind as the primary output. However, there are many other forms to publish academic work in, from zines to software to video. The workflows described herein, particularly the Facilitation and Project Management guidance, can be applied to other outputs. I have used the word “paper” throughout to maintain consistency, but invite the reader to replace the word “paper” with whatever their planned output is.

You

I wrote much of this guidebook in the second person. When I say “you,” I mean the person in the role that is related to the activity that is being described, imagining that person as the reader of the section. Sometimes “you” also refers to the whole project team.