During the first few weeks of December, ACU Press moved out of its offices on Campus Court and into the former faculty lounge just off the front foyer in the Brown Library.
The change of offices marked the beginning of a revamped partnership between Brown Library and ACU Press in a move initiated by the university. The move will change administrative interaction as well because the director of ACU Press, Dr. Jason Fikes, now reports to Dr. John Weaver, dean of the library.
Several university presses are joining forces with their libraries to produce and disseminate the content curated by the library, Fikes said. The partnership will allow ACU Press to create original and fresh content drawn from the library’s curated archives.
“One example of a great partnership that is happening is a release of a new book covering the concise history of the Stone-Campbell Movement that will come out in June,” Fikes said. “It’s been very profitable to publish that work in collaboration with the Center for Restoration Studies in the archives.”
In the future, ACU Press hopes to collaborate with the library and make some of the library’s digital primary sources more accessible through different avenues of the Press.
As ACU Press continues to produce more digital-first content, the rich media opportunities housed in the library will enhance the final products. Partnerships with the Learning Studio and Adams Center are two of the promising avenues, Fikes said.
“It’s a lot easier to collaborate with the Learning Studio now that they are our neighbors,” he said. “But we are also collaborating with instructional design, which is over in the Adams Center. We are in conversations with them about how courses that are being designed can become texts which we can promote and publish.”
Dr. Carisse Berryhill, associate dean for digital initiatives, special collections and university archives, said several members of the library staff are training to possibly assist the Press with copy editing.
“The partnership that is possible between the library and the academic publishing voice on campus should be good,” Berryhill said.
Because ACU Press recently moved into the library, its offices remain unmarked across from the Adams Center in the main entry foyer. However, official print and digital signage is expected to be finished by the end of the spring semester, Fikes said.
