Publishing Services for the UNC System

Mission of the Office of Scholarly Publishing Services

The mission of The Office of Scholarly Publishing Services (OSPS) is to serve the University of North Carolina System by providing access to a range of sustainable, mission-driven publishing models and solutions. Leveraging the expertise of UNC Press and its nonprofit subsidiary, Longleaf Services, we collaborate with libraries, research centers, institutes, and departments to lower the cost of producing and disseminating quality educational and scholarly publications. We also selectively work with other nonprofit institutions seeking to publish scholarly or general-interest work that will benefit the people of North Carolina.

The OSPS provides some grant funding to help cover the costs of publishing services through its Thomas W. Ross Fund. Learn more about the Thomas W. Ross Fund Publishing Grant.

If you would like to discuss a project please complete an evaluation form (see menu) and submit it to John McLeod, Director of the Office of Scholarly Publishing Services, at john.mcleod@uncpress.org. If you have other questions feel free to contact John directly by email or by phone at 919-962-8419.

Publishing Initiatives in the UNC System: Examples of Impact

A number of UNC System schools and colleges have publishing programs that disseminate their research to professionals, scholars, and students. The UNC School of Government is renowned for its books, reports, and other resources for people in state and local government. The NC State Extension’s books, manuals, reports, and guides are a trusted source of information for audiences ranging from agriculturalists to horticulturalists to home gardeners.

Libraries are key partners, and we have established ongoing publishing relationships with the Joyner Library at ECU, the J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte, the NC State University Libraries, the UNC Chapel Hill Libraries, the UNC Greensboro Libraries, and the Hunter Library at WCU.

We support open access and low cost textbooks that have a big impact on lowering student costs. The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics’ Contemporary Precalculus through Applications offers high schools, community colleges, and universities a high-quality option for a widely-taught course. NC State University published Michael Steer’s six-volume Microwave and RF Design textbooks that are used in electrical engineering courses at NCSU and internationally.

We work with institutes and departments that publish scholarly series. The Institute for the Study of the Americas publishes the Studies in Latin America series of short, open access monographs. NC State University’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures houses Editorial A Contracorriente, a publisher of one journal and two monograph series. UNC Chapel Hill’s Department of Romance studies publishes two journals and the North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures series.

We have partnered on Andrew W. Mellon and NEH grant-funded projects to reissue large bodies of out of print books. Appalachian State University reissued many of the works published by the Appalachian Consortium Press. The Department for Germanic & Slavic Languages and Literatures at UNC Chapel Hill republished 124 books in the Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures series.

Numerous journals provide students with the opportunity to gain publishing experience or to publish their own work such as The Greensboro Review, the International Poetry Review, the North Carolina Literary Review, the NCCU Undergraduate Research Journal, and Broad Street Scientific.