Afro-PWW

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Funding Source: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

https://pww.afro.illinois.edu/index.html

AFRO PWW’s goal is to provide access to and training for open-source digital publishing tools. In collaboration with scholars at historically black colleges and universities, the project intends to develop initiatives that serve as models for those institutions and academics exploring digital publishing. The project not only reaches out to faculty and staff at HBCUs but to members of the HBCU Library Alliance and Black Studies scholars at other institutions. Bringing the digital world to publications addressing Black life was Inspired by decades of documenting the Black experience, producing exhibits, creating educational materials for teaching Black Studies.

The outreach activities taken by AFRO PWW to bridge the inequities existing in digital publishing takes the form of formal and informal sessions at annual conferences and meetings and by invitation day-long workshops designed to give participants hands-on experiences with the tools the project supports. The workshops are a form of teach the teachers activities who are expected to take what they learn back to their institutions.

The initiative provides Individual consultations for translating your research into digital publication forms. It offers support to help you mount your work through free access to hosting tools and platforms necessary for launching your publications. Additionally, AFRO PWW guides you through the workflows necessary for University Press publications as well as connections to a peer-review journal for publication of short-form versions of your research. The project is here to help scholars navigate the new opportunities presented by collaborative, multi-modal, and interim phase works.