{"id":8140,"date":"2026-08-17T02:19:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T02:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.doaj.org\/?p=8140"},"modified":"2026-08-17T02:19:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T02:19:56","slug":"putting-the-oa-journals-toolkit-to-work-in-library-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.doaj.org\/pt\/2026\/08\/17\/putting-the-oa-journals-toolkit-to-work-in-library-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting the OA Journals Toolkit to work in library publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jules Luck<\/em><\/strong>, an Accessibility and Production Specialist at Penn State University Libraries, utilises the <\/em>OA Journals Toolkit<\/em><\/a> as an essential resource for managing their portfolio of open access journals. Jules highlights the Toolkit’s accessibility remediation section as particularly impactful and discusses the importance of collaborative efforts to build such community-driven open scholarship resources.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us a little about your background <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My path to open access publishing was not very straightforward. I was drawn to a career in  environmental science until a book I read for class profoundly changed the way I related to the environment. Realizing how much good science communication can change the way we think, I decided to pursue a Master\u2019s of Book Publishing after graduating. I didn\u2019t want to be the one doing the science, but helping tell the story of science, in a way that anyone could access. When I was diagnosed with autism during my first year of grad school, accessibility had already been a way of life. Now, managing a portfolio of open access journals at Penn State, I get to use my experience and passion for sharing knowledge to help make research more equitable, reachable, and accessible to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you find out about the Toolkit?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Open access publishing is important work, but it’s often under-resourced. Supporting it falls on librarians and other scholarly communication professionals who typically contributeignificant time, expertise, and resources to ensure high-quality research can be made openly available. Without the infrastructure and revenue that traditional, commercial publishers have available, open access journals and publishing programs depend on a network of open materials to support the work they do: open platforms, open standards, and freely available tools and resources. In turn, the reliance on shared, open materials creates an ecosystem of mutual benefit for researchers, publishers, and readers alike. Open journals especially benefit from, and even rely on, this ecosystem in order for open research to be possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I learned about the OA Journals Toolkit after I was invited to support writing the section \u201cAccessibility Remediation Resources<\/a>\u201d. As the journals specialist within Penn State University Libraries Open Publishing, a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC), and a disabled person myself, I care about making research more open, available, and usable by all. I was very excited to bring my passion in accessibility and expertise in journal publishing to support the development of this important resource. And since discovering it, it has become one of my most frequently used and shared resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you use the Toolkit?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I steward a portfolio of 30 (and growing) open access electronic scholarly journals. All the publications we host are free to read, share, download content from, and submit to. Four are print Pennsylvania History journals for which we host the digital archive; six are ceased journals whose archives we maintain; the rest are actively published under a Creative Commons license<\/a>. Our program provides the infrastructure for journals we support, including persistent identifiers, a platform, technical support, and guidance on the many aspects of starting, maintaining, and growing an open access scholarly journal. This last area is where the OA Journals Toolkit has been indispensable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I frequently look at several Toolkit sections for information. The \u201cAttracting authors<\/a>\u201d section has been particularly helpful to share with our newer journals that are just starting to build traction as a publication. Editors of these journals are eager to reach their audiences and receive more submissions but may be unsure how to market themselves. This section has been a great resource to point editors to as a structured way to think about growth and reach, particularly by introducing indexing. <\/p>\n\n\n