Scholars of digital humanities and computational social sciences will soon have an academic publisher offering a validated, peer-reviewed process for their interactive scholarly research projects. Stanford University Press, with grant funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will accelerate the integration of interactive scholarly works, usually revealed as Web sites, and new narratives enriched with digital objects and rich linking, into its publishing portfolio.
Stanford University Press will undertake a digital publishing process that mirrors the rigor and consideration of book publishing. According to Michael A. Keller, university librarian at Stanford and publisher of the Stanford University Press, the grant will be implemented over 3 years and will spark changes in the expertise and practices of specialist in all aspects of 21st century academic publishing, beginning with the practice of research by teams of scholars and leading through ultimately to all publishing roles.
Advances in technology have provided scholars with new ways to visualise and analyse data. The impact of these tools in the academy continues to evolve as more digital projects take form. Currently, individuals and research groups host their digital materials online through their own Web sites, or on various public platforms.
Stanford University Press will collaborate with the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab on implementation of the grant. In addition to developing the system and framework for publishing digital-born scholarship, the grant will develop a cost-basis for publishing digital objects and establish an example of publishing practices that other academic presses can emulate, adopt or adapt.
Stanford University Press will seek interactive scholarly works and help its authors prepare them for submission to the publishing program. Consistent with its present publishing program the Press will serve as publisher of the interactive works, acquiring titles, operating independent peer and technical reviews and marketing each published title. To guard against lost content, Stanford Libraries will perform Web and data archiving for each project.
Stanford University Press will continue their current publishing programs, including extensive digital and print-on-demand offerings, and build upon these, to support complex forms of digital scholarly argument.
