Adrian Stanley, President of SSP, opens the 2019 meeting.
The Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting 2019 was a lovely conference with strong themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion alongside the usual publishing topics. The opening keynote speaker, Dr. Mariamawit Yeshak, delivered a mind-expanding talk, highlighting the knowledge of Ethiopian traditional medicine practitioners and the fact that their knowledge is not currently being captured by scholarly researchers. She pointed out the Anglo-centric attitude of many world scholars who, even when they live in places like Ethiopia, study non-local subjects and publish in inaccessible (to their local constituencies) English or French language journals. Any local knowledge they do collect does not help their communities, as this knowledge is not in the local language.
Dr. Mariamawit Yeshak delivers the opening keynote.
Dr. Yeshak implored publishers to actively translate works into local languages, as well as support local language publications for non-English speaking communities. She also made a point to recognize the value of traditional methods, and underscored the fact that we really do not respect or understand them very well at all, even while ostensibly studying them.
J&J at SSP
Michelle English, J&J’s Director of Operations, talks to her publishing colleagues during the opening reception.
Every year, J&J exhibits at SSP with our booth. Foot traffic to our booth was steady as publishing professionals came to find out more about J&J Editorial and the publishing services we offer. The booth also offers a venue for friends and clients to stop by and chat, and we gave away a lot of J&J-branded notebooks, pens, and webcam covers.
J&J Presentations at SSP
J&J also contributed to the program at SSP by moderating and speaking at a variety of sessions.
Jennifer Deyton worked on multiple pre-meeting Seminars held the day before the official meeting started. In her role on the Program Committee, Jenn helped plan “Fact or Fiction? OASPA Lifts the Lid on Open Access Publishing” and was one of the panelists for “Journals Management Workshop: Whiteboards to Editorial Boards, and Everything in Between.”
Julie Nash moderated the panel “Leadership Development in Scholarly Publishing: A Practical Conversation” where she invited seasoned professionals from four different organizations to discuss their own approaches to leadership development, as well as the support they give to early-career professionals.
Michelle English speaks as Julie Nash moderates a panel on Leadership Development.
Michelle English was one of the panelists on Julie’s “Leadership Development” session, and provided specific insights from her experiences at J&J.
Megan McCarty discusses her early career growth from prior to joining J&J to today.
Megan McCarty spoke on the panel “Early Career Boot Camp: Your Guide to Making the Most of the SSP Annual Meeting,” where she shared her experiences leading up to her current management role at J&J. Megan shared the stage with other early career professionals and gave good advice to people who were early in their careers and/or new to SSP.
A full house at the Get Involved Luncheon.
SSP brings together a wide swathe of publishing professionals and we always learn something new from our colleagues. We also work to give back to the society through contributing to the meeting program, as well as through committee work. The “Get Involved Luncheon” was a great venue to learn about the various SSP Committees and decide which ones to volunteer for.
We’re looking forward to the next year’s meeting in Boston!
