McMaster University Library Press
Since 2006, the McMaster University Library has supported the publication of faculty and student journals.
In 2014, the Library decided to move this publication activity from a U.S.-based vendor to its own data centre. The migration to Open Journal Systems--a well-known journal publication suite developed by the Public Knowledge Project with Canadian funding and now guided by Simon Fraser University--opens up many new possibilities for publishing journals that adapt as publication standards and practices evolve. It also ensures that the publications are based on a sustainable and scalable model that the Library can support decades into the future.
Our primary task is to facilitate journal publication for faculty and students at McMaster University, but the nature of scholarly publishing entails supporting scholars well beyond our campus as well. We welcome the participation of scholars from around the world in the journals we host.
MULPress (formerly Escarpment Press) is committed to the principles of Open Access. Moving forward, we will only support journals that employ an open access business model, although we will continue indefinitely to support those currently in our list that use a hybrid model. We strongly discourage our journals from using article processing charges (APCs); while APCs can be a viable transitional funding model for an open access journal, they engender some negative outcomes and practices. To best support journals that choose open access, we do not charge for our publishing services but rather consider them to be central to a library’s mission to support the production and dissemination of scholarship. As such, we urge scholars who publisher their journals with us to extend that approach to their authors and readers.
Our services are defined in a Service Level Agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding that govern our operations.
