| What is the name of your committee? | ITAL Editorial Board |
| Your Name | Ken Varnum |
| Your Email | [email protected] |
| If your committee is part of a section, please select it (if applicable) | |
| Which report are you submitting? | May |
| How many times did your group meet during this reporting period? | 4-6 |
| First Activity | |
| Please summarize work accomplished, decisions made, and follow-up actions determined during the past 6 months. Your summary can be a narrative or bullet points, see below for reporting on specific areas. |
The ITAL Editorial Board continued its normal operations, setting policy around the journal. As mentioned in our December report, we have been changed the timing of editorial board review of articles. Since January 1, 2025, editorial board review comes as part of the “desk review” process for general suitability, as an extension of the editors’ review that has always taken place. Any editorial board concerns for articles can be addressed by authors before peer review begins. Because Marisha Kelly, ITAL’s assistant editor, has decided not to renew her appointment, we are in the process of appointing a new person for this role. A search committee (comprised of Core journal editors, ITAL editorial board members, ITAL’s editor and assistant editor, and the incoming chair of the Core Publications Coordinating Committee) is conducting interviews the week of May 5 and will present a candidate to the ITAL Editorial Board at its May 15 meeting, in time for the Core Board to make a formal decision on the nomination before the end of the fiscal year. |
| Second Activity | |
| If your committee has a specific strategic goal assigned, update any progress made on this goal. |
N/A |
| Third Activity | |
| Deliverables (Fill in bullet point and progress made) |
As mentioned above, we have reorganized the timing of editorial board review of submitted articles. |
| Ongoing Work (Fill in bullet point and progress made) |
|
| Fourth Activity | |
| What will your group be working on for the next 6 months? Write these goals in SMART goal format. |
We will continue to collaborate with the Core Fundraising and Scholarship Committee to find ways to increase revenue through donations and ‘subscribe-to-keep-open’ payments in lieu of institutional subscriptions |
| Fifth Activity | |
| How did your work contribute to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, or belonging within Core or the library profession? What areas of improvement do you see for your committee or Core in these areas? |
We strive to reach a broad technology audience within cultural memory institutions, both in our readership and authorship. |
| Is there anything Core could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work? | |
| Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work. | |
| Please describe anything you need to bring to the Core Board or section leadership for discussion or action at their next meeting. | We will have a nominee for the ITAL Assistant Editor for Board review after our May 15, 2025, Editorial Board meeting, with a request to act on this nomination before the end of June to ensure a smooth transition between the outgoing and incoming appointees. |
| Please share any additional comments, concerns, or suggestions you have. | |
| Today’s Date | 05/02/2025 |
Category: ITAL Editorial Board
ITAL Editorial Board – December 2024 Report
| What is the name of your committee? | ITAL Editorial Board |
| Your Name | Ken Varnum |
| Your Email | [email protected] |
| If your committee is part of a section, please select it (if applicable) | |
| Which report are you submitting? | December |
| How many times did your group meet during this reporting period? | 4-6 |
| First Activity | |
| Please summarize work accomplished, decisions made, and follow-up actions determined during the past 6 months. Your summary can be a narrative or bullet points, see below for reporting on specific areas. |
The ITAL Editorial Board continued its normal operations, setting policy around the journal. We have been rethinking our editorial board review of articles. That currently falls after peer review, before formal acceptance, and we are changing the timing of that review to be before peer review, so that any editorial board concerns for articles can be addressed before peer review begins. Otherwise, work has been largely routine. |
| Second Activity | |
| If your committee has a specific strategic goal assigned, update any progress made on this goal. |
N/A |
| Third Activity | |
| Deliverables (Fill in bullet point and progress made) |
|
| Ongoing Work (Fill in bullet point and progress made) |
|
| Fourth Activity | |
| What will your group be working on for the next 6 months? Write these goals in SMART goal format. |
Adapting to our new editorial board article review process and continuing to focus on the diversity and breadth of ITAL’s author and reader pools. We are eager to to collaborate with the Core Fundraising and Scholarship Committee to find ways to increase revenue through donations and ‘subscribe-to-keep-open’ payments in lieu of institutional subscriptions. |
| Fifth Activity | |
| How did your work contribute to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, or belonging within Core or the library profession? What areas of improvement do you see for your committee or Core in these areas? |
We strive to reach a broad technology audience within cultural memory institutions, both in our readership and authorship. |
| Is there anything Core could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work? | More timely responses to requests for assistance and guidance around fundraising and institutional donations in lieu of subscriptions. |
| Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work. | N/A |
| Please describe anything you need to bring to the Core Board or section leadership for discussion or action at their next meeting. | |
| Please share any additional comments, concerns, or suggestions you have. | |
| Today’s Date | 11/22/2024 |
ITAL Editorial Board – May 2024 Report
| What is the name of your committee? | ITAL Editorial Board |
| Your Name | Ken Varnum |
| Your Email | [email protected] |
| If your committee is part of a section, please select it (if applicable) | |
| Which report are you submitting? | May |
| How many times did your group meet during this reporting period? | 4-6 |
| First Activity | |
| Please summarize work accomplished, decisions made, and follow-up actions determined during the past 6 months. Your summary can be a narrative or bullet points, see below for reporting on specific areas. |
The ITAL Editorial Board:
|
| Second Activity | |
| If your committee has a specific strategic goal assigned, update any progress made on this goal. |
N/A |
| Third Activity | |
| Deliverables (Fill in bullet point and progress made) |
|
| Ongoing Work (Fill in bullet point and progress made) |
Monthly meetings, planning for launch of contributed columns, development of AI policy |
| Fourth Activity | |
| What will your group be working on for the next 6 months? Write these goals in SMART goal format. |
|
| Fifth Activity | |
| How did your work contribute to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, or belonging within Core or the library profession? What areas of improvement do you see for your committee or Core in these areas? |
Ensured that images and tables in published articles have descriptive “alt” text. Made nominations (to be approved in June by the ITAL Editorial Board) for new board members with a strong lens on the diversity of the board’s makeup. |
| Is there anything Core could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work? | No |
| Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work. | |
| Please describe anything you need to bring to the Core Board or section leadership for discussion or action at their next meeting. | N/A |
| Please share any additional comments, concerns, or suggestions you have. | N/A |
| Today’s Date | 05/28/2024 |
ITAL Editorial Board – December 2023 Report
The group met 4-6 times this quarter.
Committee Work
Summary of work accomplished, decisions made, and follow-up actions determined during the past 6 months
The ITAL Editorial Board continued to work on updating our mission and scope, with revised language now in place on the journal’s website at https://ital.corejournals.org/index.php/ital/about.
With that foundation in place, we tackled the next steps in our board’s planned work: updating the scope to match today’s technologies and topics (the scope was last significantly updated at least 5 years ago) and thinking about what kinds of content (both peer-reviewed and edited) we wish to solicit beyond our traditional articles and invited columns. That process is still underway.
Additionally, this fall we spent considerable time thinking about how to give the Editorial Board a more formal role in overseeing the journal’s contents. Language describing this new role will be made available on the ITAL website in December and the new process will go into effect with submissions on or after January 1, 2024. Briefly, once peer reviewers have reached a recommendation to publish an article, Editorial Board members will receive a copy of the anonymized article (the same version the reviewers saw) with a request to read it and share with the journal editors any concerns they might have about the article’s publication. That feedback will go into the editor’s communication with the authors and enhance the existing copyediting process. It is thought that, only in exceptional cases, that editorial board comments might trigger an additional peer review round. This process has been developed in order to ensure the continued quality of peer reviewed articles that we publish.
Progress on Goal Assigned in the Strategic Plan
N/A
Progress on Ongoing Work
The core work of the journal is publishing four quarterly issues a year. This work is ongoing.
What will your group be working on for the next 6 months?
- Complete revised scope statement by June 2024.
- Determine the need for additional edited or peer-reviewed content and define those regular features by June 2024.
- As appropriate based on the previous points, begin soliciting new kinds of content for publication in the rest of 2024 and into 2025.
Meets Core’s strategic goals for Membership and Value to Members
How did your work contribute to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, or belonging within Core or the library profession? What areas of improvement do you see for your committee or Core in these areas?
As a journal published by Core but important to the broader community of library technologists, we seek articles and columns from authors representing diverse experiences, backgrounds, geographies, and libraries.
Is there anything Core could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No
Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work.
We recommend that educational programming committees consider ITAL articles as topics for presentations.
Submitted by Ken Varnum on 12/19/2023
ITAL Editorial Board – May 2023 Report
The group met 4-6 times this quarter.
Recent Activities
First Activity
Finalized a DEIA statement: We created a DEIA statement and updated our About a Journal page (https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/about) to reflect this welcome declaration of our intent. The scope statement for the journal had not been significantly revised in at least a decade. As a follow up to this statement we are now working on a mission statement.
Meets Core’s strategic goals for Membership and Value to Members
Second Activity
Distributed a diversity survey to ITAL reviewers and board members: To give the Editorial Board an understanding of how well we reflect the diversity of Core’s membership and our much broader readership, we are taking a first step in distributing a survey to the roughly 50 reviewers and editorial board members, asking them anonymously to describe, as they feel appropriate, “how you personally enhance and contribute to the diversity of ITAL’s pool of editorial board and peer reviewers.”
Meets Core’s strategic goals for Membership and Value to Members
Third Activity
Continued work preparing to consolidate Core’s journals: In January, the Core Journal Editors recommended that Core consolidate its three journals with ALA Production Services. While planning for this migration has not yet actively begun from ITAL’s perspective, it is expected to complete before the September issue is published.
Meets Core’s strategic goals for
Fourth Activity
Solicited nominations for Editorial Board members for 2-year terms (2023-2025): Over the past several months, a nominating committee drafted a call for new members, distributed it, and made nominations for the Board’s review at its late May 2023 meeting. We documented the process for reuse in coming years.
Meets Core’s strategic goals for Membership and Value to Members
What will your group be working on for the next 6 months?
Continuing work to develop our mission statement, onboarding new board members, and migrating ITAL to its new platform with ALA. Throughout, we will be working to ensure that our mission statement and diversity statement are reflected in the works we seek to publish.
Is there anything Core could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No.
Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work.
A potential special issue of the journal focused on machine learning and artificial intelligence is being discussed between ITAL and the Core Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Libraries Interest Group.
Additional comments or concerns:
As the three journals move together under a single budget plan, it’s important for Core and the journals to make sure that publishing the journals is financially sustainable in the long term. Identifying ways to supplement Core’s budget for the journals will need sustained attention.
Submitted by Ken Varnum on 05/19/2023
ITAL Editorial Board – December 2022 Report
The group met 4-6 times this quarter.
Recent Activities
First Activity
Working with the other three journals' editors and assistant editors to develop an RFP for a single publishing platform, review proposals, and create a proposal for the Core Board's review has been the editors' most important activity this time period.
Meets Core’s strategic goals for Evaluate and Adjust Core’s Structure
Second Activity
The ITAL Editorial Board conducted a review of its policies and practices and has embarked on a year-long process to reframe them in a more coherent, consistent way. Over the fall, the board is working in smaller groups to accomplish three main tasks related to defining and describing our DEIA principles:
1) Identify the broad demographics of the libraries/institutions represented by the current Board and Reviewer pools so that we can recruit new members to fill identified gaps
2) Identify diversity descriptions/definitions among our peer journals
3) Draft a DEIA statement and update our journals scope accordingly.
Meets Core’s strategic goals for Evaluate and Adjust Core’s Structure, Membership and Value to Members
What will your group be working on for the next 6 months?
The work noted in #2, above, will lead into what is planned for the second half of the year: Developing a mission statement for ITAL and exploring new kinds of contributed content to reflect our DEIA goals and mission and user expectations, with changes to the journal content planned for the latter half of 2023.
I anticipate that the journal's editor and assistant editor will continue to work closely with our peers in LL&M and LRTS to share best practices and move our three journals into one publishing platform.
Is there anything Core could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No
Submitted by Ken Varnum on 12/21/2022