CUL - Main Content

We are not currently accepting new partnerships as we evaluate our staffing and service levels. We thank you for your interest in working with us, and for your patience as we work to improve this space. Please check back periodically for updates. 

Columbia University Libraries supports the creation and distribution of quality, open-access research and scholarship. Our journal partners play at the boundaries of currently canonized fields, open new fields of inquiry, explore innovative methods, and invite new and traditionally underrepresented voices to be part of the scholarly conversation. Our program is built on partnerships between journal editors - many of whom are undergraduate and graduate students - and the Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Division. Partners are offered resources, individual consultation, and workshop opportunities to learn how to operate publishing software and to conduct open, ethical, and efficient publishing workflows.

Journals hosted through this program* do not charge fees of authors nor of subscribers. This is traditionally known as Diamond Open Access, and can be understood as Columbia University Libraries-sponsored open access, as we cover the fees for website hosting, technology, and staffing necessary to operate our roughly thirty partner journals.  

We provide feedback and guidance related to journal policy, procedure, and administration; our partners oversee editorial decisions related to their published content. The Libraries and our partners are governed by Columbia University’s Statement of Ethical Conduct, Administrative Code of Conduct, and the Rules of University Conduct.

At Columbia, the Strategic Directions of the Libraries include shaping discourse, and as a library publisher, we’re guided by The Library Bill of Rights; we recommend partners familiarize themselves with these documents to understand the philosophical framing that librarians as a profession bring to censorship, access to information, and privacy.

*The Journal of Clinical Education in Physical Therapy has article processing charges to pay for a commercial type-setting service.

Explore our journal publishing portfolio at journals.library.columbia.edu.

Who can work with us?

Any individual faculty member, librarian, or any department, center, research unit, or college associated with Columbia University or its affiliates can propose a journal partnership with the Libraries.

Current Columbia University students – undergraduate and graduate – can partner with the Libraries with the written endorsement and ongoing support of faculty advisors. If the student journal is formally affiliated with or seeks to represent a department, center, or institute on campus, the consent of that department, center, or institute must also be obtained in writing.

What kind of journals do we partner with?

We seek out diverse and unique projects that aim to fill gaps in the scholarly record, to provide new publishing venues for disciplines outside the mainstream, graduate students, and emerging scholars, and that offer opportunities for participants to gain confidence and knowledge in academic publishing. We especially welcome journals that address subjects outside of the western canon and global north. We also support student-run journals edited by those who are committed to learning more about ethical publishing practice and developing professional academic skills. 

We partner with editors to develop entirely new journals as well as to transition existing journals to our open access program and technology platforms.

Visit our journal showcase page to see examples of our journals and experience our Open Journals System platform. 

Through the Columbia University Libraries Journals program, Columbia University Libraries and our Digital Scholarship team support the creation, discovery, and preservation of open-access research by Columbia-affiliated faculty and students. Our goal is to provide infrastructure and support for a wide range of scholarship across numerous disciplines and our various journals offer valuable opportunities to learn about scholarly publishing for undergraduate and graduate students and emerging scholars.

Benefits of working with Columbia University Libraries Journals Program

Our publishing partners can expect a thoughtful level of support for their publications. As such, we endeavor to provide a core set of standard services to all of our publishing partners, which includes:

• Access to our journal publishing platform, Open Journal System (OJS) multisite. This includes providing pre-set template options and a design consultation to set up basic journal “look and feel” and help with logo creation;

• Training resources on our Partner Resources page;

• Training opportunities and consultations for editorial board members;

• General technical support for the publishing platform and related workflows, and troubleshooting the digital publishing platform;

• Annual reports of journal activities over the past year;

• Registration and maintenance of unique identifiers (Digital Object Identifiers or DOIs) through Crossref for articles;

• Assistance in indexing of your journal in appropriate discovery platforms and registries; 

• Guidance, consultation, and templates for various journal-related policies and procedures;

• Consultation and recommendations for journal legacy/transition planning;

• Preservation of journal content in Columbia’s Academic Commons.

Our Publishing Partners

Our partners play an integral role in the scholarly publishing process. The responsibility of managing and sustaining academic journals is a large commitment. As part of this work, our partners are expected to:

• Develop and share editorial policies and guidelines for your journal.

• Migrate any existing content to your new journal site.

• Select a license for your journal, and include that information on the journal’s website footer, on article HTML pages, and in article PDF galleys.

• Publish at least one issue a year.

• Manage the editorial and publishing process, which entails 

  • Following good and ethical editorial practices, as described in the Committee on Publication Ethics Core Practices;

  • Creating and maintaining your editorial board;

  • Soliciting submissions and managing the review, editing, and publication process through the publishing platform.

• Create an Author Agreement template and store all signed documents in a central location.

• Responsibly and ethically use copyrighted materials. Review the following page on the Columbia Copyright Advisory Services, and consult with the Director of Copyright Advisory Services at Columbia University Libraries.

• Keep the information, publishing agreements and administrative materials up to date on your journal website.

• Have a comprehensive transition document that includes your journal’s policies and workflows and that lists important contact information, and is updated annually and stored in a central location.

• Provide the Libraries with current names and contact information for the editorial board members and liaisons annually before the start of the academic year. 

• Send one editorial board member (at minimum) to the Libraries’ annual training session for the digital publishing platform.

• Grant the Trustees of Columbia University the non-exclusive right to make a digital copy of the hosted work(s) available for permanent archiving and for public access in the Columbia University Libraries institutional repository, Academic Commons, or any successor initiative based at Columbia University.

For Undergraduate or Graduate Student Journals

Student journals must identify at least one faculty advisor–and ideally two or more–and introduce your advisor(s) via email to Libraries staff. If your advisor changes, you must communicate this to Libraries staff. Note that for student journals, faculty advisors are required for DOAJ inclusion. 

Student journals are expected to have an Editor in Chief (or co-Editor-in-Chief) who is a current Columbia University student and maintain an editorial board that includes 50% or greater current Columbia University students.

Undergraduate journals may not publish high school student work.

Ending partnerships

At times it becomes necessary for the Libraries to sunset journals, such as in the cases when a journal has not published an issue in a year or longer, the board is unresponsive, or the faculty advisor does not have the ability to recruit a new board. In the event that the Libraries decides to end the partnership with a  journal, the current editor in chief will be given 60 days notice.

If a journal wishes to end its publishing relationship with the Libraries, they must provide the Libraries with 60 days notice via email to publishing@library.columbia.edu, which will initiate a library sunsetting workflow.

If you have questions about our journal publishing program or would like to learn more, contact the digital scholarship division at publishing@library.columbia.edu