Moderated Discussion: Preserving Our Value(s): Scholarly Publishing in a Changing World

Although every year in the scholarly publishing ecosystem is a balancing act of innovation, optimization, and value creation, 2025 is shaping up to be particularly challenging as the pace and scale of change is accelerating more than we’ve ever seen before. There is increasing pressure to provide value to and to meet the incredibly diverse needs of the global research community while maintaining financial health for our own organizations, living our values, and continuing to protect the scholarly record. With AI, open access, integrity, and mistrust frequently dominating the conversation, we are in the midst of an unprecedented shift in both our industry and society as a whole. As always, the SSP community continues to focus on bringing together academics, funders, librarians, publishers, service providers, technologists, researchers and countless others with a communal interest and stake in disseminating scholarly information. We look to the 47th Annual Meeting as an opportunity to continue this tradition and welcome all colleagues and community stakeholders.

Ann Gabriel leads Elsevier’s Global Strategic Networks team, which engages with key stakeholders across the research enterprise to establish strategic collaborations and use data analytics to address societal challenges in the areas of sustainability, diversity & inclusion and open science. Prior to her current role, she held a variety of positions at the forefront of scholarly communication – most recently as Elsevier’s Publishing Director for journals in Computer Science and Engineering, as well as electronic product development for Elsevier’s ScienceDirect platform.

Elisabeth M. Long is Sheridan Dean of University Libraries, Archives, and Museums at Johns Hopkins University. She oversees library services in the six Sheridan Libraries and coordinates library services provided by all schools of the university through the University Library Directors Council (LDC), which she chairs. She also oversees the university’s historic house museums, Homewood Museum and Evergreen Museum & Library. Prior to becoming dean at Johns Hopkins, she served as associate university librarian for information technology and digital scholarship at the University of Chicago Library since 2016, where she began her career in 1993. She served as interim library director and university librarian from December 1, 2021 to April 21, 2022, and was an Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Leadership Fellow in 2018–19. She currently serves on the HELIOS Open Advisory Council and the APTrust Governing Board, and was a member of the ARL/CNI AI Scenario Planning Task Force. Dean Long holds a BA from St. John’s College, an MLIS from the University of Maryland, and an MFA in book and paper arts from Columbia College Chicago.

Melanie Dolechek has served as the Executive Director of the Society for Scholarly Publishing since 2015. She is founder and past Convener for the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication and past treasurer of the Kansas City Society of Association Executives where she has also served on the Communications and Program committees. Melanie holds a Master of Science in Management from Baker University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kansas State University and is a Certified Association Executive. She has been active in scholarly publishing since 2006, previously serving as the Director of Publishing and Marketing of Allen Press. She has been a speaker at several KCSAE events over the past several years and a presenter at the ASAE Annual Meeting in 2019, 2021, and 2024. In 2023 she was awarded the KCSAE Distinguished Association Executive Award.

Niko Pfund is Publisher and President of Oxford University Press, USA. He began his career at Oxford in 1987 as an editorial assistant in law and social science before moving to New York University Press in 1990. At NYU Press, he was an editor and then editor in chief before becoming director in 1996. He returned to Oxford in 2000 in the role of Academic Publisher and is responsible for the Press’s scholarly research and reference publishing across the humanities, social sciences, science, law, and medicine. A past President of the Association of University Presses, he serves or has served on a number of boards and advisory groups, including those of the Digital Public Library of America, the Executive Council of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing division of the American Publishers, the Eurasia Group Foundation, and the literary magazine The Common. In July, he will become Director of Yale University Press.

Sarah Tegen, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President and Chief Publishing Officer, ACS Publications, at the American Chemical Society. She leads the development of ACS’s pre-eminent portfolio of ninety hybrid and open-access journals, oversees the award-winning magazine Chemical & Engineering News, manages the development of the ACS books program, and heads strategic planning and relationship development in Asia. Dr. Tegen began her career as an acquisitions editor at the National Academy of Sciences (US). She is an alumna of the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Tegen is the Chair of the Board of STM and serves on STM’s Research Integrity Governance Board and the Coalition for Responsible Sharing. She previously chaired the Circles Board at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and served on the American Heart Association’s Scientific Publishing Committee and the American Society for Microbiology’s Publishing Committee. Tegen previously served as Co-Chair of STM’s Society Day, Co-Chair of PSP’s Journals Committee, and CSE President. Tegen has developed several PROSE-Award winning journals and platforms, is a frequent speaker on a range of industry topics. She is a passionate advocate for science literacy and STEM education.