I write this post about halfway through the 2025 Society for Scholarly Publishing meeting, held this year in Baltimore. Some impressions below:

First, the good news: some of the views from the meeting hotel are spectacular, particularly for a baseball fan:

Home run celebrations aside, the vibe of this year’s meeting is different from any I’ve seen in the 15 or so years I’ve attended. An air of uncertainty hangs over the meeting — we know a lot of important things are happening, nearly all of them deeply worrisome. At the same time everything seems to change on such a rapid basis that strategic planning is extremely difficult. How do you plan when the ground shifts nearly every day?

One thing the chaos is doing, however, is bringing the scholarly communications community together. In such extreme times, we realize that our differences are much smaller than the things we hold in common, and watching the previously disparate parts of the community sharing ideas, information, and just connecting in their venting is encouraging.

In chaos there’s freedom, and an ability to do the necessary things that might have suffered from inertia in more stable times. While many organizations have shied away from an active role in policy spheres, or at least made it a low priority, now it is an existential necessity. Can this spur a new activism among the publishing community that will become the ongoing, relationship-building, long-term effort that effective policy work requires, rather than our standard process of only becoming active during a crisis? Is this crisis large enough to finally offer a change in the community’s approach?

The trustworthiness of the scholarly record and the value that journals offer are very publicly being questioned. The alleged “reproducibility crisis” has been weaponized, not only against us, but against the entire research community. Now is the time to implement the reforms that you’ve been thinking about, but that maybe seemed a little too onerous when there were other things you could focus on instead. What can your organization publicly do to improve, and then make clear the rigor and standards that are required by your publications?

We’ve been challenged to justify our existence. What can you offer to publicly show the value we bring to the table? Passivity is no longer an option.

Meeting attendees, how’s it going? Please share your thoughts below.