This presentation was provided by Susan Doerr of The University of Minnesota, during the NISO Humanities Roundtable event "Building Diversity, Building Accessibility, Building Better." This event was held on September 23, 2020.

1. Susan Doerr
Associate Director
University of Minnesota Press
@susanmpls
Building New, Building Better
Enhanced Digital Publications for the Humanities

3. Manifold ScholarshipManifold Scholarship
First-class digital publications
• Create the next phase of digital scholarly publishing, move beyond static
PDFs and ePubs that replicate print.
• Enable authors to share their works-in-progress
• Allow authors to incorporate rich archives of primary source digital materials
and media into their texts.
• Scalable editorial and production procedures for media rich, accessible
publications incorporated into existing publishing workflows.
• Well-designed and intuitive reading interface with annotation and commenting
tools for readers.
• Connection publications to social networks.

4. Manifold ScholarshipManifold Scholarship
How do we build better?
• Share the power of publishing: the publishing industry is 76% white
https://blog.leeandlow.com/2020/01/28/2019diversitybaselinesurvey/
• Create well-structured ePub files
• Create accessibility metadata

5. Manifold ScholarshipManifold Scholarship
Seize the means of publication!
• Sharing power and control of publishing with
• individuals
• collectives
• non-traditional scholars
• academic departments
• libraries
• scholarly centers
• associations

6. Manifold ScholarshipManifold Scholarship
Accessibility Enhances Discovery
• Metadata for accessibility includes meaningful descriptive captions, alt-text, long
descriptions, keywords.
• Extract keywords and other discovery metadata from alt-text, captions, and
long descriptions
• The long descriptions and alt-text explain what is happening in a media
element, and provide context for its inclusion in the book. This textual
metadata can be applied to preservation, for instance if the technology needed
to view the media no longer exists, the descriptive metadata can provide
description and context.
• Tables of contents, cleverness, and discoverability.

7. Manifold ScholarshipManifold Scholarship
Accessibility metadata,
advice for publishers
• Rely on authors to provide meaningful captions and alt-text
• Ask authors to supply the datasets informing any graphical elements
• Work with authors on long descriptions
• Accessibility metadata becomes part of the production files as part of standard
procedures

8. Manifold ScholarshipManifold Scholarship
Revised Publication Workflow
Content Creation. Authors research, draft text, document resources, gather or create supporting media—
providing meaningful captions and alt-text—and organize the structure of their arguments.
Peer Review. Authors develop their argument with press editors who shepherd the materials through the
peer review, revision, and contract processes.
Transmittal. Press editors work with authors to finalize the manuscript, art package, review and edit
accessibility metadata, and secure any remaining permissions. The content of the book is logically
structured and accessibility metadata is included within it.
Editorial/Design/Production. The project moves through copyediting and typesetting—both occur out of
house but are informed by press staff—before all the materials and brought together in house and sent to
the printer and our electronic vendor partners. Both print and electronic output are anchored in
accessible footings.

9. @ManifoldScholar
manifoldapp.org
ManifoldScholar/manifold