April 20, 2016 – Wheat Ridge, CO – The 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) will be held atthe Westin Bayshore in Vancouver, BC, June 1-3, 2016. Although its membership includes professionals from around the world, this is the first time SSP is meeting outside of the US. The theme for this year’s meeting is Crossing Boundaries: New Horizons in Scholarly Communication.
“As publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers, we find ourselves at a time of unprecedented change and unexpected collaborations,” said Mary Beth Barilla, co-chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee. “At last year’s meeting of SSP, we saw how innovation and change are taking place on the edges of traditional fields and processes. In Vancouver, we will meet again to examine new ways of bridging concepts and challenging assumptions about the marketplace, business models, and our individual roles.”
The SSP Annual Meeting includes timely and thoughtful keynote addresses and concurrent sessions featuring an international group of presenters from all areas of scholarly communications: publishers, vendors, librarians, and researchers. The Program Committee received more than 100 high-quality proposals for concurrent sessions this year.
“Organizations and individuals willing to step out of their ‘comfort zone’ are re-defining the world of scholarly publishing by breaking down silos, forming new partnerships, and expanding their focus to reach a global audience,” said Laura Ricci, cochair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee. “Sessions at this year’s meeting will focus on ways we can learn from these experiences and explore what lies over the horizon for scholarly publishing.”
The meeting kicks off with a plenary panel on mentorship—a collaboration between SSP and STM—on Wednesday, June 1 at 4:00 pm, followed by Speed Networking at 5:15 pm and the Opening Reception at 6:30 pm.
Attendees will enjoy ample opportunities for meeting colleagues and sharing ideas at evening receptions and interactive lunches, and our popular Exhibitor Marketplace provides a central area to learn about new products, programs, services and solutions. Participants will also see the major themes and takeaways unfold in real time as a graphic recorder illustrates ideas and insights about scholarly communication from speakers and attendees.
Entrepreneur and author of The Startup Playbook, David Kidder has been announced as the keynote speaker on Thursday at the meeting. Kidder is the co-founder and CEO of Bionic, an enterprise innovation accelerator and platform. He also cofounded several startups in the digital advertising space. Kidder received ID Magazine’s International Design Award and Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2008.
On Friday, attendees will hear from keynote speaker, Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour, the Associate Dean of Science, Diversity at the University of Alberta. For more than 30 years, she has been active in encouraging women to consider careers in the sciences and engineering, and currently is Chair of the Board of the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology. Her awards include a 3M Fellowship, a Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case and the Montreal Medal of the Chemical Institute of Canada, and she has been twice named one of the top 100 most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network and membership in the Order of Canada.
There will be no shortage of opportunities for professional development at the meeting. A variety of half-day seminars on June 1st will offer in-depth discussions and practical advice to prep attendees for the concurrent sessions. Topics include predatory publishing practices; open access and sustainability; data publishing; publishing in international markets; and data interchange practices.
And, what’s more fitting for a publishing conference than to actually publish a book while attendees observe and contribute?Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination is bringing together a team of novelists, scholars, digital publishers, journalists, and technologists to write a book on-the-fly in 72 hours. Using a suite of collaborative technologies, participants will quickly write, edit, assemble and publish a multimedia anthology exploring publishing topics through a series of “sprints” that take place in real-time at the meeting.
Additional activities planned for the meeting include a Fun Run/Walk on Thursday morning and a scavenger hunt in Stanley Park on Friday afternoon.
“There is so much going on at the SSP Annual Meeting this year,” said Melanie Dolechek, SSP Executive Director. “Our Annual Meeting Program Committee has worked diligently to assemble a collection of speakers and sessions to cover the broad and increasingly diverse topics that are shaping our industry today. Our Education Committee has developed timely and engaging pre-meeting seminars and our Development Committee has worked tirelessly with our sponsors and exhibitors to create an exciting and unique attendee experience. Professionals in scholarly communications will not want to miss this meeting!” For more information and to register for the SSP 38th Annual Meeting, visit: https://www.sspnet.org/events/annual-meeting-2016/event-home/. Register by April 22 for the lowest rates.
About the Society for Scholarly Publishing – The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), founded in 1978, is a nonprofit organization formed to promote and advance communication among all sectors of the scholarly publication community through networking, information dissemination, and facilitation of new developments in the field. SSP members represent all aspects of scholarly publishing — including publishers, printers, e-products developers, technical service providers, librarians, and editors. SSP members come from a wide range of large and small commercial and nonprofit organizations. They meet at SSP’s annual meetings, educational seminars, and Librarian Focus Groups to hear the latest trends from respected colleagues and to discuss common and mutual (and sometimes divergent) goals and viewpoints.
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