Though the publishing activity of the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela dates back from the 18th century, the University Press (SPIC) in its present form was established in 1945. The University Press publishes, distributes and exchanges not only books, monographs and doctoral theses resulting from the research done by the university’s academics and researchers, but also scientific journals in different fields of knowledge. The decisions about publication and editorial policy are made by an Academic Editorial Committee (Comisión Editorial Académica). The Committee is formed by ten members from the five major fields of knowledge – Health Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Sciences, Engineering and Architecture – and it meets at least three times a year. Though the University Press gives priority to manuscripts by academics and researchers from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, it is also open to works by external researchers provided that they have received the Committee’s approval.
Press Contact
Servizo de Publicacións e Intercambio Científico
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Campus Vida
E-15782 Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
spublic@usc.es
Tel.: (+34) 881 812 392
Principal Contact
Juan Luis Blanco-Valdés
Phone (+34) 881 812 392
Support Contact
Xosé Henrique Quintáns-Míguez
Phone (+34) 881812393
joseenrique.quintans@usc.es
Focus and Scope
As an academic publisher, the primary focus of the University Press is scholarly, scientific and technical, and its interests extend to topics in any subject or field of knowledge. Moreover, as a public institutional publisher, the priority of the University Press is not to make a profit. Within these general conditions, and in order that its products can both achieve a wide circulation and make a reasonable impact, while simultaneously ensuring the return on production investment, the policy of the University Press tends to favour the publication of the manuscripts with the greatest thematic interest, topicality, academic relevance, demand, transdisciplinarity and potential national and international impact.
The University Press currently has a collection of over five thousand titles, whether in print or out of print, including monographs, journal volumes, and doctoral theses from all branches of knowledge. Apart from its regular collections, it has a quality imprint called USC Editora with six series (Académica; CELE.Cuadernos de Español como Lengua Extranjera; Clave; Ensaio; Manuais; Textos). The University Press publishes some scientific journals in an electronic format alone; these are available from its portal Rev{USC}. Through its Scientific Exchange Service, the releases of the University Press (books and journals) reach over 1300 research and cultural centres around the world. In addition, those releases (printed as well as electronic) are marketed not only through conventional distributors of printed books and digital content distribution platforms, but also through our own electronic bookshop. All the releases of the University Press are indexed in, among many other databases, Agris, ASFA Database, Bibliographie Linguistique, CIRBIC, DIALNET, DI, Current Index to Statistics, Elsevier Bibliographic Databases, Francis-CNRS, MIAR, MLA, Latindex, Historical Abstracts, Political Science Abstracts, Political Science Complete, ProQuest Periodicals Acquisitions, Redalyc, Regesta Imperii, RESH, TOC Premier, The Philosopher's Index, Scopus, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts (Select.), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Westlaw, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Zoological Record, etc.
Peer Review Process
The mission of the University Press is to make known, publish, market and exchange books, journals and other publications financed by the university, whatever its format and according to the nature of publication defined by the University Press.
The fundamental aims of the University Press are the following:
- Publishing the works
- Make known, distributing and marketing the published works
- Promoting the open access to publications in an electronic format
- Exchanging our own releases with other universities and with public as well as private organizations
- Prompting and encouraging electronic production
- Collaborating in the acquisition of works for the university library’s collection
On the one hand, the in-house staff in the editorial and technical department are directly responsible for guaranteeing the formal quality of the product: linguistic correction (spelling, grammar, syntax), stylistic correction (expressive propriety and accurate wording) and orthotypographic correction; also, the functionality and aesthetic appeal of the design together with the highest efficiency of the format (be it printed or electronic).
On te other hand, all of the editorial products of the University Press undergo controls of conceptual and scientific quality, according the publishing typology as follows:
1. USC Editora. In the case of manuscripts submitted for the USC Editora imprint in all of its series (Académica; CELE. Cuadernos de Español como Lengua Extranjera; Clave; Ensaio; Manuais; Textos), conceptual and scientific quality is guaranteed by an anonymous and systematic peer-review process whose confidentiality goes in both directions (author-reviewer, reviewer-author); the process is established in the second section of the Regulations of the University Press.
2. Collections with a director and/or a scientific committee. In the case of manuscripts submitted to collections, it is the director and/or the scientific committee that certify the quality of the manuscript after analysing it, reading it and even, in some cases, asking for expert reports. The collections are: Biblioteca de Divulgación-Serie Galicia; Biblioteca de Divulgación-Serie Científica; Cadernos CIPPCE de Emerxencia Cultural; Clásicos do Pensamento Universal; Biblioteca de la Cátedra de Cultura Cubana 'Alejo Carpentier'; Biblioteca de la Cátedra Valle-Inclán de la USC; Lalia-Series Maior; Limiar; Publicaciones de la Cátedra 'José Ángel Valente' de Poesía y Estética; Publicaciones del Departamento de Geometría y Topología; Publicacións da Cátedra Juana de Vega. Actas; Publicacións da Cátedra Juana de Vega. Cadernos de Investigación; Publicacións da Cátedra Juana de Vega. Monografías; Publicacións da Cátedra Juana de Vega. Faladoiros; Verba. Anexos.
3. Works with external scientific responsibility. In all other cases, works published out of series, institutional publications, conference proceedings, festschrifts, etc., the sole conceptual and scientific responsible will be the department, institution, institute, research group or project that promotes them and, therefore, finances them entirely.
In all cases and typologies, the works published by the University Press require the approval of the Academic Editorial Committee, formed by ten members from the five major fields of knowledge – Health Sciences, Social and Legal Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Sciences, Engineering and Architecture – which meets at least three times a year.
All the foregoing editorial processes are transparent to the parties involved (authors, internal reviewers, external reviewers, directors of collections, members of editorial boards of collections, editors and technical editors), but they are obviously confidential when necessary. This is possible because they are carried out by means of the technologies afforded by the editorial management platform Lib{USC}, developed with the Open Monograph Press software. On the one hand, this software allows all parties to perform their respective roles and tasks online and, on the other, it registers and files the whole editorial record of every manuscript (proposal forms, communications, reports, files in their successive versions, etc.).
Open Access Policy
According to Spanish and European legal provisions, regulations and directives concerning open access to knowledge, and to the conditions and limitations established by intellectual and industrial property laws, the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela promotes the free circulation of scientific contents in digital format. In this respect, the University Press leaves to the judgement of the authors of original monographs to decide whether their works should be published under conditions of commercial exploitation (being therefore accessible only after paying for their purchase) or in free and open access. In all cases there are two kinds of limitations on this free decision:
- — doctoral theses are published compulsorily, and for legal reasons, in open access (with restrictions due to patents and confidentiality clauses with companies);
- — all the journals of the USC are published in open access.
The copyright of the works and journals published in open access is owned by the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela which takes responsibility for the legal protection of their contents and determines the conditions and limits of their use trhough a Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 4.0, generic for all digital resources of the Press in open access. As a consequence, any form of reproduction, distribution, public communication or modification of the work which is not contemplated by the Creative Commons license will be allowed only with express authorization of the rights holders, save where otherwise provided by the laws.