UMass Amherst Libraries Announce New Journal, Counseling Scholarship and Practice in Educational Communities (CSPEC)

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce a new journal, Counseling Scholarship and Practice in Educational Communities (CSPEC), which is being published in partnership with the Ronald H. Fredrickson Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (CSCORE). This open-access, peer reviewed journal was established to promote scholarship related to counseling activities in preK-12 settings. The first issue was published in February 2025 and can be found here: https://openpublishing.library.umass.edu/cspec/issue/271/info/.

CSCORE Associate Director Matthew Lemberger-Truelove (University of North Texas) and Director Carey Dimmitt (Professor, School Counselor Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst) will serve as the Editor and Managing Editor, respectively. The Editorial Team and Review Board include more than 25 leaders in the field of school counseling from across the country.

The Review Board welcomes submissions from school counseling and other allied professions, such as school social work, school psychology, teaching, etc. Those interested in submitting manuscripts should review the submission guidelines on the CSPEC website: https://openpublishing.library.umass.edu/cspec/submissions/.

Erin Jerome, Library Publishing & Institutional Repository Librarian at UMass Amherst, played a significant role in the creation and publication of the journal. “Erin Jerome of UMass Amherst Libraries has been instrumental in helping us launch CSPEC—we couldn’t have done it without her,” says Dimmitt. “Her expertise, thoughtfulness, and attention to detail made the process much more manageable.”

Regarding this journal and the UMass Amherst Libraries’ publishing program, Ryan Clement, Associate Dean for Data, Digital Strategies, & Scholarly Communications notes, “The benefit of publishing open access journals through library publishing programs is that we can bring together library resources, expertise, and networks to support high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship that is freely and openly available to the world. The CSPEC journal will bring this access, in particular, to the community of preK-12 counselors and educators, who sometimes struggle to obtain access to the latest scholarship because of the high costs of traditional journals.”

Further information about the journal can be found at: https://openpublishing.library.umass.edu/cspec/.