Scalable Electronic Publishing in a University Library

Since 2001, the Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO), a division of the University of Michigan University Library, has published a broad range of scholarly literature in electronic and print form, extending the library’s commitment to the distribution of scholarship by experimenting with innovative methods for publishing to serve the needs of scholars, both at the University of Michigan and around the world. In 2007, SPO’s staff of approximately 7.5 FTEs published nearly 2,000 articles in journals, reviews, and conference proceedings, plus a handful of monographs, image collections, and other digital projects. Text content is stored in XML, with approximately half of the 2007 articles derived from unstructured electronic source documents. SPO’s seven years of experience demonstrates how to build a scalable electronic publishing operation.