In addition to our platform and the articles it disseminates, Érudit is a digital infrastructure whose wide range of services helps support open scholarly publishing in Canada. But what does that mean, specifically?
Our series “The Team Behind Érudit” continues! This series aims to introduce some of the members of our organization and the work they do on a daily basis. Today, we shine the spotlight on Hocine Chehab, our digital publishing advisor!
What is a Digital Publishing Advisor?
My role essentially involves constantly listening to the needs of journals and knowing the editorial process inside out so that I can understand the challenges facing editorial teams. I like to think that I am a reassuring presence for these teams, who face a multitude of challenges in an ever-changing ecosystem!
Could you describe a typical day at Érudit?
For me, a typical day involves a lot of communication with journals and the rest of the Érudit team. Whether by email or videoconference, I start my day by talking with the editorial teams, who tell me about their needs or questions. If I can’t respond to the journals directly, I forward their requests to the various Érudit teams (production, accounting, IT, etc.).
Which project that you have contributed to recently makes you particularly proud?
I greatly enjoyed participating in the online publication of the Encyclopédie raisonnée des techniques du cinéma in the Books and Proceedings section of our platform. Funded by a SSHRC grant, this collection consists of works in film studies (on topics such as the remediation of film images in video games). The first texts in the collection were not suitable for distribution in book form, as they were only available on a dynamic website in HTML format. We therefore had to find creative solutions to get around this problem so that the texts could be made available in PDF format with XML metadata. I am very proud of this project!
What was your career path before joining Érudit?
I completed a Master’s degree in digital publishing at the Université de Bretagne Sud, in France, then did an internship in digital publishing at Presses Universitaires de Rennes. It was with this major player in scholarly publishing in France that I signed my first contract, which involved putting scholarly journals online on OpenEdition.
Before you leave us, can you recommend any articles or books that are close to your heart?
I particularly like the article “Lounès Matoub et ses chansons : l’Algérie embrase le coeur, l’Algérie attise la raison,” published by Mohammed Yefsah in the Nouvelle Revue Synergies Canada. This article highlights the work of a Kabyle artist who has always fought against religious fundamentalism and been a fervent defender of Amazigh culture!