The Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) 44th Annual Meeting was held June 1-3 in Chicago, IL, and online. The event attracted over 775 total attendees who contributed to an exciting event filled with stimulating discussions about the strengths we possess as a community, alongside lessons learned during the pandemic.
Annual Meeting Program Chairs Lori Carlin (Chief Commercial Officer, Delta Think Inc.), Yael Fitzpatrick (Editorial Ethics Manager, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), Tim Lloyd (CEO, LibLynx), SSP Meeting Manager Tracy Mitchell (ConferenceDirect), and SSP Program Director Mary Beth Barilla worked closely with a team of enthusiastic volunteers and speakers who strived to make SSP’s return to an in-person meeting a success.
Attendees from 17 countries enjoyed reconnecting with colleagues and sharing ideas at evening receptions, interactive lunches, and facilitated networking sessions. Remote attendees accounted for 17% of the meeting audience.
Thirty concurrent Educational Sessions and 15 Industry Breakout Sessions brought more than 125 speakers to the meeting. Over 400 organizations represented the scholarly communications and publishing industry, including university presses, professional societies, research and editing service providers, librarians, media companies, and more.
Top Ten Attendee Affiliations include: Wiley; American Chemical Society; International Monetary Fund; AIP Publishing; Atypon; Morressier; Wolters Kluwer; American Medical Association; Silverchair; and AAAS.
Downloaded by more than 750 users, the meeting app allowed attendees, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors to take their meeting experience a step further by creating personalized agendas, posting meeting-wide discussion threads, sharing photos, and catching up on missed sessions. In addition, attendees reported that recording and making all educational sessions available in the app added value to the meeting.
The 44th Annual Meeting offered attendees another strong program full of informational and thought-provoking presentations, covering the most prominent issues and questions in the industry today. Attendees and speakers discussed tough questions and considered how they could work together to find the right balance amidst shifting demands.
This year’s keynote speakers brought a fresh perspective on community building, while Industry Breakout Sessions featured advice, case studies, expertise, and the latest market solutions.
Urban historian and TikTok sensation Shermann ’Dilla’ Thomas (6figga_dilla) kicked off the meeting with Wednesday’s opening keynote. A modern historian, cultural worker, and public employee, Dilla energetically discussed the role of Chicago’s history in shaping modern education and the accessibility of non-traditional methods of scholarly communication as a way to address misinformation.
Thursday’s keynote speaker, Jennifer Heimberg, Director of The Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust at The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, outlined several initiatives the Strategic Council is working on that align the policies and incentives of funders, researchers, and scholarly publishers.
Some of the most popular educational sessions were ’Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Scholarly Publishing: Looking Ahead to 2029,’ ’Publishing Services Agreements: Impact of OA and Other Industry Trends,’ and ’How to Build a Lasting Culture of Innovation (and What Not to Do): A Conversation with the Experts.’
The SSP Previews Plenary, ’New and Noteworthy Product Presentations,’ offered attendees the chance to learn more about the industry’s newest and most innovative products, platforms, or content in back-to-back presentations and then select the ’Best Innovation.’ DataSeer received this year’s honor for their toolkit for open science, which includes Open Science Audits and High Fidelity Article Checks that use AI and NLP to promote research data sharing.
Additionally, SSP was pleased to offer educational posters as a new category of Annual Meeting presentations which provide an avenue to share additional content. The ’People’s Choice Award’ for posters was awarded to ’Ten Simple Rules for Post-Pandemic Preprinting’ by Michele Avissar-Whiting, Editor in Chief at Research Square Company. ’Ten Simple Rules’ reflects on Research Square’s learnings from more than 20 months of navigating rapid research dissemination in a global pandemic and presents a list of 10 best practices for authors preparing a preprint submission.
Several individuals were also recognized during the Annual Meeting for their outstanding contributions to the field of scholarly publishing.
The opportunity for publishers and service providers to reconnect with ther community is always a major draw. The anticipation for this year’s marketplace was only bolstered by the last two years. With over 50 exhibitors, the Exhibitor’s Marketplace was the hub for networking and catching up with friends and colleagues.
Plans for SSP’s 45th Annual Meeting (May 31–Jun 2, 2023) are well underway. The Annual Meeting Programming Committee will begin exploring session ideas this month. It will announce the Call for Proposals in just a couple of months!
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