September 2025 POP Updates

[Caroline Mort]

Welcome to the POP Google Group! We plan to send out a message with key updates on a regular basis, either monthly or every other month, depending on how much there is to report. Feel free to ask questions, share news, or chat with others here. So far, we’ve only added library partners to the Google Group, but feel free to invite your journal managers as you see fit. They can request to join via this link. If you have any questions, or thoughts on how to make this a better experience, please feel free to reach out. 

POP General Updates 

• We now have journal cover templates available for POP journals. Template use is encouraged but not required, especially if a journal already has a cover design in use. See the attached PDF for detailed instructions and links to each Canva template. We hope that these templates serve as a quick, easy way for all POP journals to create covers for their journals. If you or your journals have any feedback, please share it and we’ll be happy to work on improving this offering. 
• We’ve created an FAQ Page for general questions about POP 
  • This is mainly geared towards prospective library partners and journals, for now

Janeway Updates 

• Janeway to be updated to 1.8; exact launch date TBD  
  • Read the release notes here 
• Cover image harvesting from Janeway into Meru will be available in the 1.9 update, which will be released sometime later this year. Once implemented, cover images on Janeway will be automatically harvested into Meru when harvests are performed, either manually or on an automated schedule. If you’d like to set up an automated schedule for your journal harvesting, get in touch with Caroline (cm...@unc.edu).  
• Outgoing Janeway emails (such as review requests, reminders, etc) will now be sent via a Google server, which should help to reduce the likelihood that they’ll end up in spam.  
  • Your journal's “from” email address will now end in @mail.janeway.systems. You can see this in your general settings in the manager portal in Janeway. Please do not change this. You can change whatever comes before the @ symbol, though. 

Meru Updates 

• New Features 
  • Meru is rolling out official documentation 
    • So far, most of the information pertains to admins 
    • Check back for more comprehensive documentation 
  • Cover images (which are called thumbnail images in Meru) are now adopted by all children items in a collection. Cover images will only be inherited downwards within a collection hierarchy. 
    • Example: If you add a cover image to a journal, all volumes, issues, and articles in that journal will adopt that cover image. If you then add a unique cover to a volume in that collection, the previously inherited cover from the main journal will be overwritten and issues and articles in that volume will adopt the new volume-specific cover, and so on.   
  • Links / Related Journals Feature 
    • In past Meru demos, several of you asked what the “Links” feature was in the Meru admin portal, and I didn't have an answer. The Links feature allows you to feature other journals or materials from both within your own community and across others. When you link a journal to another journal, for example, a "Related Journals” section will appear on your journal’s homepage and link to a suggested journal of your choosing. You can see an example of this on this BTAA test journal page, which also features a great header image.  
  • We encourage you to explore the entire BTAA Meru test site for further inspiration and exploration of features, such as the “Units” feature, which I was also unable to explain in previous demos. “Units” are intended to showcase content related to a specific department or subject. 
• Fixes 
  • Search Filters Error Fixed 
    • Previously, selecting more than one filter in Meru’s search would result in an error. This has been resolved.  
  • We meet with the Meru development and NGLP teams every other week to discuss how we can improve Meru and develop new features that improve everyone’s publishing experience. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to reach out. A few examples of features to come include custom URLs and DOI registration. 

[Caroline Mort]

Hi all,

I'm attaching an updated version of the POP Journal Cover Template Guide. 

The links in the previous version were not clickable!