Hi everyone!
I was wondering if there are any other library-led publishing partners/hosting services here? If so, what do you offer in the way of production services? Do you offer XML or HTML publishing? How do you go about this?
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[I support multilingualism. My message is written in my native language, French, and translated into English. Read the version that suits you best and feel free to respond in the same way.]
FR
Bonjour Rebecca! Merci d’avoir posé la question. Il y a beaucoup de bibliothécaires engagé.e.s dans la publication académique ici. Je me permets d’attirer leur attention sur votre billet : @mdvorakova @SofieW @lisa.mueller @margobargheer @IsabellaM en particulier, nous avons besoin de votre expertise ici!
EN
Hello Rebecca! Thank you for asking. There are many librarians involved in academic publishing here. I would like to draw their attention to your post: @mdvorakova @SofieW @lisa.mueller @margobargheer @IsabellaM in particular, we need your expertise here!
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Hi Rebecca,
While I’m not a tech-savvy person myself, I know that many of my colleagues are experimenting with this, but the solutions provided seem to require some further refinement. Also, it depends on which platform you are using. The following refers to tools for OJS.
– I found a presentation from five years ago from the Library Publishing Coalition Conference, talking about the Grobid plugin that I thought sounded promising the last time I heard about it https://librarypublishing.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PKP-XML-Publishing-Workflows.pdf
– I also found a newer guide from 2025 on how to use the Texture plugin for OJS, which appears to be okay: https://openjournaltheme.com/how-to-create-jats-xml.
Looking at my organisation, which runs the Stockholm University Press, we decided early on to seek help in producing files for publication, and we therefore use services from an external provider. We procure a contract to ensure the lowest possible cost, and then the book series and journals will be able to enjoy this. The service we provide is specified in the publishing contract, and you can perhaps get a hint about how it works here: https://www.stockholmuniversitypress.se/book-publishing.
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Hi Rebecca,
I refer to OJS if not otherwise stated.
In addition to considering the valuable information provided by @SofieW, you might also
- contact the focus group on single source publishing within the working group of University Presses - scholarly publishers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy @margobargheer;
- check OS-APS (Open Source Academic Publishing Suite). The software is under constant development and compatible with OJS and OMP:
- contact @xvanedig from TIB Open Publishing;
- contact and/or join the Single Source Publishing Community which deals with general SSP questions;
- contact my colleague @okrueger who is in charge of journal hosting at Hamburg University Press. We enable the publication of articles as html within OJS. However, we do not offer an SSP workflow.
If you are interested in Digital Humanities issues you might be interested in our current project. By pursuing a pragmatic approach, the project should result in an html article view that enables the display of images in a IIIF viewer within the html view in OJS. The embedded images will also be enriched (annotations and layers).
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Hi Sofie,
This is so helpful, thank you! We use OJS so I’ll be sure to check out those plugins. We aren’t in a position to offer typesetting services currently, but I’m hoping it is something we can offer in the future!
Hi Isabella, Very helpful - thank you very much! I’ll check out those links.
Hi everyone! (My first post here 
)
Also, OJS plans to include further support for XML-Workflows in the future, beginning with JATS-XML for Metadata in 3.5 with future Integration with Editors to be expected in future releases (3.6+). Those are also mentioned within the public Roadmap (PKP Public Roadmap · GitHub). Also within PKP there is a XML-Working Group which is currently advancing that topic.
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The University of Zagreb University Computing Centre SRCE has developed the JATS XML Converter Service. Here is the documentation: https://wiki.srce.hr/spaces/HRCAK/pages/184292677/JATS+XML+Converter+Service+Guidelines+and+Tutorial and you can also watch this webinar: https://youtu.be/bpQX2LQYwlI?feature=shared&t=1959
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Welcome! That is really good to hear. Sounds like some exciting developments coming from OJS!
This is so helpful! Thank you so much.
A bit late but: So far, we use the docx converter plugin in OJS to transform docx documents to JATS. Then, we use the texture plugin to process further. Before the JATS XMLs are rendered with the lens galley bits plugin as HTML, quite a bit of manual processing is needed.
Than you for sharing! That’s interesting. Sounds like quite a few steps!
Hello, I’m taking advantage of Sebastian’s post to share my two cents.
My name is Marc Bria and, like Sebastian, I am a member of PKP’s technical committee, of which I have served as chair for the past two years.
I’m writing because during that time one of my main concerns was seeing the considerable amount of collective effort we were investing in this task. I am a strong advocate of open-source software (and of everyone’s freedom to pursue their own solution), but from the perspective of the community, I believe resources could be used more efficiently if we had better coordination.
Allow me to expand on this idea a bit further:
Back in 2017, in order to get some clarity, I started a series of reports aiming to map the tools that could help implement JATS within OJS. The series concluded in 2019 with this final report, as I didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel: https://forum.pkp.sfu.ca/t/who-is-who-in-jats-2019/57063
I am not exaggerating when I say that, since then, I have seen more than twenty projects allocate resources to incorporating JATS into OJS (some of them never been public) and, in my view, none have achieved the level of success required for broad and solid adoption.
In some cases, the consortia dissolved and the tool was left behind (as happened with Texture); in others, the tools were partial, solving specific issues but unable to cover the entire workflow (“who is who” is a good starting point). Some depended on third-party services, and others were developed outside the community without PKP’s involvement, which meant that integration and long-term maintenance could not be guaranteed… and none of them implement a good enough open source JATS Editor (able to talk JATS 1.2), that it’s an essential piece without which the workflow is very limited.
In short (without knowing about every proposal in detail and at the risk of being mistaken), while there are many pieces on the table to build the puzzle, I don’t think any of them is comprehensive enough to cover the whole workflow, let alone comply with the standard, at least in version 1.2. As a result, we still lack a consolidated, broadly usable tool.
The positive news is that last year PKP obtained a grant that has allowed them to allocate resources to, among other things, developing JATS integration within OJS. I would like to believe that this time we are on the right track to achieving it.
I understand that some have more pressing needs than others, and that working collaboratively is not always easy. Even so, I would like to encourage us to pool our efforts and build upon a single development rather than giving in to the temptation of creating our own separate solutions.
Cheers,
m.
[This message is written in Spanish, my native language, and translated into English using a language model, so some nuances may be lost in translation. To avoid overwhelming readers with long posts, I am only publishing the English version.]
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Hi Marc. Thank you for responding. I really appreciate the information and history of attempting to connect this workflow with OJS. I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for the JATS integration that results from the funding!
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Here in Portugal, we also use the option mentioned by @xvanedig. However, this has had several limitations, increasingly so, as plugins have not been further developed. We are eagerly awaiting the integration of JATS into OJS.
We have already tested the platform from the University of Zagreb, as indicated by @milica.sevkusic, but unfortunately encountered limitations. The first is that journals have large articles which cannot be uploaded into the tool.
We are also testing https://os-aps.de/ so that we can recommend it to journals. Additionally, since we have @UMinho Editora at the University of Minho, we will also test it for publishing books in BITS-XML format.
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Hi there!
I’m one of the developers of OS-APS and glad to hear that OS-APS ist working well for some of you! If there are any comments or improvements please don’t hesitate contacting the OS-APS team (mail@os-aps.de). We’d love to hear about your experiences with OS-APS as well, so get in touch with us.
FYI: PKP is currently working with the software developer SciFlow on the integration of the OS-APS editor in OJS (PKP forum).
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