# Publishers

The Publishers feature helps you manage the organizations that publish academic journals and monographs. By maintaining a directory of publishers, you can link journals to their publishing houses, manage transformative agreements, and ensure consistency across your institution's publication tracking.

## Overview

You can access the Publishers page from the **Journals & Publishers** section in the navigation menu. The overview displays all publishers in your system with their names, block status, and quick access to editing.

You can search for publishers by name using the search box at the top of the page.

![](/_static/img/publishers_overview.png)

## Understanding Publishers in CODA

Publishers are the organizations that publish journals, books, and other academic materials. In CODA, publishers serve several important roles:

- **Journal management**: Each journal is linked to one publisher
- **Contract organization**: Transformative agreements are associated with publishers
- **Monograph publishing**: Book publishers are tracked for monograph funding requests
- **Blocklist management**: Publishers can be flagged to prevent funding certain publications

```{admonition} Publishers vs. Creditors
These are different entities in CODA:
- **Publishers** publish journals and academic content
- **[Creditors](creditors.md)** send invoices for publication costs

While often the same organization (e.g., "Springer Nature" as both publisher and creditor), they serve different purposes in the system.
```

## Creating a Publisher

To add a new publisher:

1. Navigate to the Publishers page
2. Click the **New** button
3. Enter the **Publisher Name** 
4. Click **Save**

The publisher is immediately available for linking to journals, contracts, and monographs.

![](/_static/img/publishers_create.png)


## Editing a Publisher

To update a publisher's name:

1. Navigate to the Publishers page
2. Find the publisher you want to edit
3. Click **Edit**
4. Update the **Name**
5. Click **Save**

All journals, contracts, and publications linked to this publisher automatically reflect the updated name.

![](/_static/img/publishers_edit.png)

```{admonition} Important
Editing a publisher's name updates it everywhere in CODA. This affects:
- All journals published by this organization
- All contracts with this publisher
- Historical data and reports

Use this carefully for corrections or standardization, not to repurpose a publisher entry.
```

## Publisher Blocklist

CODA includes a blocklist feature to flag publishers your institution wants to avoid:

### Blocking a Publisher

From the publisher list:

1. Locate the publisher you want to block
2. Click the **Block** button
3. The publisher is immediately added to your blocklist

Blocking a publisher helps your team identify potentially problematic publishing relationships during funding request review.

### Unblocking a Publisher

If a publisher should no longer be blocked:

1. Find the blocked publisher in the list (they show an **Unblock** button)
2. Click **Unblock**
3. The publisher is immediately removed from the blocklist

For more information about managing blocked journals and publishers, see the [Blocklist](blocklist.md) documentation.

## Using Publishers in CODA

Publishers are referenced throughout CODA in several contexts:

### In Journals

Every [journal](journals.md) is associated with one publisher:

- When creating a journal, you select its publisher
- Journal listings display the publisher name

This connection ensures accurate representation of who publishes each journal.

### In Contracts

[Transformative agreements](contracts.md) specify which publishers are party to the deal:

- Contracts can include multiple publishers (for publisher groups)
- Publishers are searched and added when creating contracts
- Contract coverage is determined by publisher and journal relationships

### In Monograph Funding Requests

When creating funding requests for monographs:

- You search for and select the book publisher
- The publisher information is stored with the publication

### In Automatic Import

When importing funding requests:

- If a publisher with the specified name exists, it's reused
- If the publisher doesn't exist, CODA creates it automatically
- This prevents duplicate entries and ensures completeness


## What's Next?

- In future versions of CODA we want to implement a soft deletion feature to handle duplicate publishers.
- Furthermore, we want to implement a detailed view where publishers are associated with [journals](journals.md), [contracts](contracts.md) and [funding requests](fundingrequests.md). 

Publishers provide organizational structure for your institution's publication ecosystem, connecting journals, contracts, and costs under the organizations that make academic publishing possible.