Coevolution of library services, scholarly communication infrastructures, and emergent academic fields: the ongoing case of veterans studies

A decade ago, an archivist and a librarian asked the Charleston Conference: Is your library ready for an emergent academic field? (Brodsky and Pencek 2013) Here we present a history of that emerging academic field, veterans studies, emphasizing its coevolution with library services that support scholarly communication. These culminated in a flourishing open-access journal, a biennial conference, and a scholarly association to coordinate them. Ultimately, a local initiative became an international network that attracted federal grants and publisher interest. But even with scholars’ networks growing and librarians promoting access and preservation, a key question before the field is whether today's publishing ecosystem can be sufficiently robust and diversified to carry forward the multidisciplinary, transnational intellectual project laid out in the Veterans Studies Association’s scope statement (VSA 2022). Although a peculiar convergence of opportunities made possible one library’s contribution to the institutionalization of veterans studies, university libraries' intellectual and technological resources – even in their early stages – to support their own communities may be better equipped than they assume to help scholars grow new fields of research and instruction.