A Late Summer Secondment in the World of OLH Tech 

A blog post by Emily Gresham Beamer, CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership Intern.

I began my editorial placement with the OLH hoping to develop a specific editorial skillset, and chose the Open Library of Humanities for its commitment to open access publishing. I knew a brilliant and busy tech team made this mission possible through the OLH’s open access publishing platform, Janeway. I could describe the work of the tech team vaguely, but most definitely not with the benefit of practical knowledge or experience. Lacking an overly technical background, I did not think this side of the OLH would be one where my skills would develop. 

But, in the midst of onboarding two talented new editorial officers to the OLH team, I was asked by Dr. Rose Harris-Birtill, Editorial Director of the OLH, if I would be interested in having an August secondment with the OLH tech team. They thought it would be a perfect opportunity to add some new skills to my belt, and gain a more comprehensive understanding of the tech team's crucial role in making the OLH’s open access publishing mission a reality.  I said yes, with some hesitation. As someone who had never opened her computer’s terminal (“...and where is that?”) or used code outside of half-hearted teenage attempts at customising my blog (think pixelated falling stars, eye-watering backgrounds in shades of electric blue), I was a bit intimidated. 

But, I should not have been! Dr. Steph Driver, our Publishing Technologies Developer here at the OLH, was kind enough to share her technical know-how, acting as my first port-of-call in my technical journey. 

Steph introduced me to my primary mission: contributing to the ongoing testing of Janeway 1.9, to ensure it meets accessibility standards before launch.

Practically, this meant testing and reporting where issues had arisen, documenting these issues on the OLH GitHub, and re-testing fixes as they came in from Steph. She walked me through everything this entailed in detail. Together, we opened the previously mysterious-to-me terminal on my computer, and Steph taught me how to pull down new branches of Janeway for testing, as well as how to document testing on Github. 

Using both her technical expertise and her teaching background, Steph patiently guided me through the entire process. She made sure I was not only supported, but felt comfortable spotting accessibility bugs and offering creative solutions myself. As Steph fixed bugs spotted, I reviewed her solutions. Together, we made Janeway more accessible and truly ‘open’ as an open access publishing platform. 

Keyboard traps, focus indicators, pulling branches…before my time with tech these terms would have had more of a poetic resonance for me than a technical one. But as the weeks went by, one-by-one they left the world of abstraction, and became not only recognisable, but practical to my running of accessibility tests. By the end of my time with the OLH tech team, I was able to contribute my own ideas for opening accessibility on the OLH journal webpages further. 

A welcome hand was lent to OLH tech, and I was left with the ability to think critically about the relationship between webpage access and the ‘open access’ mission of the OLH, now with practical experience to back it up. I now can say I have tendered a skillset which bridges the technical and the editorial components of open access publishing, in my eyes reflecting the essential and inextricable role each plays in the world of open access publishing!

Thank you Steph and the larger OLH team for trusting me to undertake this secondment, and all the support you’ve lent along the way! 

If you are interested in learning more about Janeway or in hosting your journal with the platform, please visit: https://www.openlibhums.org/site/janeway/