Key Dates

• Application Available — Friday, January 19, 2007
• Application Deadline — Friday, March 23, 2007
• Notification of Status — Monday, April 16, 2007
• Institute Dates — July 18–20, 2007
  Workshop will begin at 11:30 AM on Wednesday; Last session will end around 5 PM on Friday.

Location: Washington, DC

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) are jointly sponsoring the Institute for Scholarly Communication, an immersive learning experience to prepare participants as local experts within their libraries and equip them with tools for developing campus outreach strategies. As a participant in this 2.5-day program, you will become fluent with scholarly communication issues and trends so that you are positioned to educate others on your library staff, engage in campus communications programs and other advocacy efforts, and work collaboratively with other participants to begin developing an outreach plan for your campus.

Participants will work with experts in the field to understand how to better engage faculty at their institution around the crisis in scholarly communication systems. Participants will also learn about the emergence of new models for scholarly communication as well as strategies for creating systemic change, including:

• Faculty activism (e.g., editorial board control, author rights, copyright management, and self-archiving)
• New publishing models
• Digital repositories
• Legislative and policy advocacy

The institute's goal is to help participants prepare a program plan that is customized for their institution. To achieve this goal each participant will prepare an environmental scan prior to the institute, engage in a series of active learning experiences during the event, and write an outreach program plan for implementation at their home institution.

Who Should Apply?

Institute planners are committed to creating an experience that allows people with varied expertise to explore scholarly communications issues together. The planners hope to have the cohort represent a wide range of professional backgrounds, types and sizes of institutions, and roles within the institutions. Examples of institutional roles include:

• Librarians who work directly with faculty members on campus
• Library administrators
• College and university faculty and administrators
• Those responsible for digital repositories
• Librarians with collection development responsibilities

The institute sponsors are seeking participation from a wide range of academic libraries, from community colleges to large research institutions. Team applications are encouraged (up to three participants from a campus), particularly for larger institutions, although individual applications will also be considered. Recognizing the challenges smaller institutions face in participating in the institute and the value of their contributions to outreach efforts, small institutions will not be penalized in the selection process if they are able to fund only individual participants rather than teams.

Application

The online application is now closed.

The Institute on Scholarly Communication uses a competitive application process. The number of participants is limited to 100 and the previous offerings of the institute received more applicants than could be accommodated, so careful preparation is a good strategy.

The application is brief but requires a statement of goals and a letter of support from an administrator showing organizational commitment to the development of a scholarly communication program. The selection committee reviews the applications to create a cohort representing a wide range of professional backgrounds, types and sizes of institutions, and roles within the institutions. Team applications are encouraged and teams that have included faculty have been especially successful. We recommend that you review the report at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/successful_apps06.pdf to help you prepare a strong application.

Registration

The registration fee is $650 per person. The fee includes all institute materials, continental breakfast and breaks on each day, and lunch on Thursday and Friday. Participants are responsible for other meals, travel, and lodging expenses.

Questions?

Please consult the FAQ page if you have questions about the institute.

If you have further questions about the institute and/or the application process, please contact Kara Malenfant, Scholarly Communications and Government Relations Specialist, ACRL, at kmalenfant@ala.org or Karla Hahn, Director, Office of Scholarly Communications, ARL, at karla@arl.org.