Report

In 2003, ARL convened a group of scholars, librarians, information technologists, and administrators to explore how the disciplines and sub-disciplines are approaching the use of technology.

scholarly-tribes-bibl-dec03.pdf

In 2009 the Association of Research Libraries is renewing its strategic plan. The plan that will result from this effort will guide the Association in setting priorities and organizing its activities for the next several years, a time that is expected to present unprecedented challenges and concomitant opportunities to research libraries. To support the work of the Strategic Planning Task Force, ARL senior staff have initiated an environmental scanning exercise to identify trends that are likely to affect research libraries and the work of the Association. The report considers not only challenges, but also opportunities.

transformational-times-feb09.pdf

Special issue of "Policy Perspectives", co-sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of American Universities, and the Pew Higher Education Roundtable. This Policy Perspectives is about the challenge of maintaining access to significant researchand scholarship at a time when both the volume and price of information have increased nearly three-fold in the last decadealone.

to-publish-and-perish-mar98.pdf

This paper addresses some of the strategic issues that relate to the traditional system of scholarly communication by looking at changes in informal and formal communication between scholars and scientists and at emerging spaces that scholars are using to conduct and to disseminate the results of their research. Originally presented at e-Workshops on Scholarly Communication in the Digital Era, August 11-24, 2003. Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, it was preliminary reading for the Scholarly Tribes and Tribulations conference in October 2003.

scholarly-tribes-thorin-17oct03.pdf

To foster a deeper understanding of an emerging research library role as publishing service provider, in late 2007 the Association of Research Libraries surveyed its membership to gather data on the publishing services they were providing. Following the survey, publishing program managers at ten institutions participated in semi-structured interviews to delve more deeply into several aspects of service development: the sources and motivations for service launch, the range of publishing services, and relationships with partners.

research-library-publishing-services-mar08.pdf

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Digital Repository Issues Task Force was charged "to evaluate trends, contextualize repository activities among ARL libraries, and recommend leadership roles and activities for ARL." Institutional repositories are a common form of repository, but this report focuses more broadly on the full range of repositories. At the same time, it concentrates on repository services rather than repository technologies or content.

repository-services-report-jan09.pdf

This report summarizes the results of a project to investigate options that research libraries have for providing publishing support to small, print-based publishers.

pub-support_7mar11.pdf

On behalf of the ARL Task Force on Special Collections, UIUC's Barbara Jones prepared this white paper that lays out the problem, the opportunities, and some recommendations for how ourcommunities might proceed to expose hidden special collections and encourage their use.

hidden-colls-white-paper-jun03.pdf

This report examines the issues associated with moves toward electronic-only publication of journals. It is based in large part on interviews with two-dozen academic librarians and journal publishers. Interviews were conducted with collection officers and others at a dozen ARL member libraries; the rest of the interviews were with publishing staff of societies and university presses, publishing platform hosts, and publishing production consultants.

electronic_transition-2007.pdf

In the spring of 2008, ARL engaged Ithaka to conduct an investigation into the range of online resources valued by scholars, paying special attention to those projects that are pushing beyond the boundaries of traditional formats and are considered innovative by the faculty who use them. This report profiles each of these eight types of resources, including discussion of how and why the faculty members reported using the resources for their work, how content is selected for the site, and what sustainability strategies the resources are employing.

digital-sc-models-report-2008.pdf