This is part 4 of the Travels with Terence series, following our digital projects editor on his pilot press in-person training program. This week brought Terence to Temple University Press in Philadelphia! Given his American Ninja Warrior tendencies, he’d planned to run the “Rocky stairs” at the art museum, but after a recent injury, he opted to spend that time resting and recuperating over a lovely Indian dinner.The Manifold pilot at Temple is being spearheaded by Mary Rose Muccie, Director, Temple University Press and Scholarly Communications Officer, Temple University Libraries, and Annie Johnson, Library Publishing and Scholarly Communications Specialist, Temple University Libraries. Terence had the chance to meet with both and remarked:

As I was preparing for the trip last week, going over some of our earlier exchanges, I was caught by something that Mary Rose wrote: ‘We can learn a lot from readers, and Manifold will give us a window into how they react to, interact with, and use our content, something we can't get with a traditional print or electronic book.’ I think that really speaks to the power of the platform. Manifold is intentionally designed to enable scholars and publishers the means to both embrace and comfortably extend beyond traditional modes while still remaining familiar, intuitive, and scalable. Manifold is more than just a pretty platform—it’s a means to add value to scholarly publications of all kinds.Our conversations at Temple, as they did at Indiana and Athabasca prior, quickly moved from the process and mechanics of how to do things in Manifold to how Manifold can be used to do so much more than we’re used to. It was a thrill to have Mary Rose creating new projects on their instance and talking strategy with Annie on one half of the table, while I was fielding questions from other team members about editorial and marketing process and expectations. It’s a kick to be able to really talk shop in a collaborative and explorative way.

Exploring new possibilities is exhilarating and thirsty work. Temple University Press has a reputation as a social justice press because of its long history of—and continued commitment to—publishing in labor studies, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and urban studies. Learn more on their website, or connect with them on the Twitter or Facebook.

• Miles Travelled: 978
• Doughnuts Eaten: 0. Troubling.
• Homages to Rocky Balboa: Nearly continuous in the ethereal realm of Terence’s mind.