Scholarly Communication
Scholarly communication can be defined as "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs."
In an environment that is increasingly global, the ARL Scholarly Communication program encourages the advancement of effective, extensible, sustainable, and economically viable models of scholarly communication that provide barrier-free access to quality information. ARL also encourages initiatives for new modes of scholarship that demonstrate promise for the future.
The program currently has the following components: to analyze and characterize the dynamic and diverse system of scholarly communication and ensure a continuing dialogue among its many stakeholders; to support selected new models and tools of scholarly communication; and to aggressively develop and pursue new strategies to advance fair pricing and the terms and conditions under which content is made available and preserved, including openness and transparency in contract agreements.
The Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) jointly sponsor the Institute on Scholarly Communication (ISC) to promote the development of library-led outreach on scholarly communication issues. The institute has hundreds of alumni forming a community that provides peer support and professional sharing of information relating to campus outreach.
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Researchers and scholars provide the focus and the purpose for scholarly communication. Librarians can be forceful advocates for positive change. Outreach to scholarly society leaders is one important activity for libraries can do to promote positive change that advances the scholarly communication system through new research and dissemination models.
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Scholarly communication relies in part on the ability of research libraries to purchase published works. Traditional publishers are transforming their products and business models to accommodate digital publishing. The scholarly publishing market currently is a hybrid market involving both print and digital resources.
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New publishing models for scholarly communication are "new" because they offer a new genre (or form of presentation), business model, new way for authors and readers to communicate, approach to peer review, or some combination of these. One common factor is that they are Internet-mediated. New models also may combine forms of content that could not usefully be published together in print form. Research articles can be integrated with primary source material on a single site, commentary can be integrated into a monograph, learning objects, working papers, and a blog may be available from a single site.
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Quality and impact are two critical elements of the scholarly record. Research and scholarship is measured by both long-standing and newly developed techniques and tools.
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