PKP honours long-time Director of Operations, Kevin Stranack, for his dedication to the project, the team, and the communities he has worked to serve. Learn more about Kevin’s story and his time with PKP in this interview with Urooj Nizami.
A tribute to a career that inspired
What PKP’s Director of Operations Kevin Stranack needs on his forthcoming retirement from PKP is not an introduction but an expression of our appreciation for the difference he has made across a great many fronts from all of us. It is not just that Kevin has seen it all at the Public Knowledge Project over the last two decades. Rather, he’s been a major cause of why it all happened as well as it has over the years. This is due to the caring, thoughtful, and principled ways in which Kevin has indispensably helped PKP serve the greater global community of scholarly publishing.
In fact, what should be introduced here is how Kevin’s stepping into this project (along with Brian, Alec, and Juan in that early period) formed the real starting point of the PKP that people turn to today. For example, what Kevin, as a talented adult educator, developed and made a success was PKP School and related educational components that are now integral to PKP’s service to its community. But it’s not just this project that has been enhanced by Kevin’s tireless contributions. Rather, it is also all us who have been enhanced by, just as we have benefited from, the opportunity to work with such a remarkable individual.
– John Willinsky, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, and PKP Founder
Today, PKP is stronger than ever and well equipped for the future. Kevin’s dedication and his welcoming kindness have contributed massively to PKP being a trusted partner to many around the globe. I am thankful for his leadership and his care for the people WHO make up PKP.
– Marco Tullney, Head of Publishing Services, Technische Informationsbibliothek and Chair of PKP’s Advisory Committee
The story and the journey: In Kevin’s words
1. What’s your PKP origin story? (How did you first hear about PKP and what drew you in?)
I first heard about PKP as a graduate student in Library and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia in 2001. I was part of a student project trying to build an open source XML authoring system for free newsletter publishing (what were to become blogs) and was told about OJS over in the Faculty of Education. It was more focused on scholarly workflow than document creation, but I found what John Willinsky was doing there fascinating.
2. How long have you been with PKP?
This is my 20th year with PKP. I was working at the Simon Fraser University Library on other open source projects (CUFTS, GODOT, dbWiz) when PKP moved from UBC to SFU, and I was asked to get involved.
3. When did you come to understand the breadth of PKP’s impact?
I knew PKP was something special early on, but my full understanding of its impact came from helping to organize the first PKP conference back in 2007. The incredible line-up of speakers, funders, and participants really let me know what a big deal PKP was. It changed how I thought about my work from then on.
4. Do you remember your very first day at PKP? Can you tell us about what stood out to you in those early days?
My first task for PKP was to do a thorough test of the brand new OJS 2 using a testing matrix, probably written by John. It was a deep immersion into the various roles and stages of scholarly publishing. As a new librarian, I was familiar with the basics, but this provided an education beyond anything I learned in grad school.
5. Over the years, how many different roles or hats have you worn at PKP?
In those early days, there was just John as the founder and visionary, Brian Owen (then Associate University Librarian for Systems at the SFU Library, now retired) as Managing Director, Alec Smecher as the developer, and me as the community person. In that role I did software testing, documentation creation, technical support, communications, graphic design, sales, marketing, community outreach, conference organizing, curriculum development, workshop instruction, membership development, business development, and many other things. We were a small but mighty team!
6. Do you remember your first PKP-related work trip? Where did you go, and what was that experience like?
I think my first work trip would have been to visit our friends at Érudit at the Université de Montréal. It was my introduction to the incredible work they were doing in XML publishing, and my task was to give them an introduction to OJS 2. I had no idea how deep our relationship would run, how we would create the Coalition Publica partnership together (one of only a handful of research projects recognized by the Canadian government as “Major Science Initiatives”), nor how much the people working there would come to mean to me twenty years later.
7. What would you say is your proudest accomplishment or an initiative that’s especially close to your heart?
That is difficult to narrow down! I’m probably proudest of my work with Brian Owen to create the sustainable organizational and financial structure that PKP continues to benefit from today, consisting of the four pillars of home institution support, memberships, social enterprise, and grants. Completing the POSI assessment really demonstrated how mature PKP has become as an organization.
Closest to my heart would have to be the creation of PKP School, which continues to mean a great deal to me as a platform for building capacity and helping to diversify participation in scholarly publishing.
8. In meetings, I’ve picked up on the fact that you sometimes take notes by hand. Have you held onto all your PKP notebooks? Any idea how many you’ve filled over the years?
Yes, that is a practice I developed from my first librarian job, well before I would have had any kind of mobile device to take to meetings. I average about 3-4 per year, so that would be about 60 notebooks over the years.
9. If we were making a PKP blooper reel, what moment would definitely make the cut?
For the first PKP conference, we had no way of transferring money for meal and taxi expenses to invited international delegates, so I ended up going to the airport with envelopes stuffed with cash, and handing them out as people arrived. I’m surprised I didn’t get arrested.
10. What are some key lessons you’ve learned during your time at PKP? What surprised you most?
This might sound cheesy, but it truly is amazing how much a small, dedicated group of people can accomplish with the right mix of vision, skills, and determination; and how close you come to those people despite only rarely seeing them in-person.
11. From your vantage point, what’s changed most about PKP over the years?
The biggest change would be the scale of our activities. We are a much bigger team, from 4 when I joined to over 40 now, and the size of the community we are serving. 55,000 journals actively using OJS would have been unthinkable in the beginning.
12. Any exciting plans for retirement?
I enjoy a nice, simple life here on the prairies, so nothing too exciting. My plan is to just spend more time on the things I enjoy, like walking the dogs with my wife along Wascana Creek, exploring back roads of Western Canada with my sons, photography, woodworking, gardening, meditation, reading, and such.
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That sounds wonderful, and we wish you all the best in your retirement. Thank you so much, Kevin, for taking us on this journey with you, from PKP’s humble beginnings to the global pillar for free and open source publishing it is now. You will be missed, but your contributions and leadership will continue to foster purposeful growth for many years to come!
