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Scholarly Communication

ACRL is committed to working to reshape the current system of scholarly communication, focusing in the areas of education, advocacy, coalition building and research. In January 2002, ACRL launched its Scholarly Communication initiative, with goals of creating increased access to scholarly information; fostering cost-effective alternative means of publishing, especially those that take advantage of electronic information technologies; and encouraging scholars to assert greater control over scholarly communications. Below is information about ACRL's work in the Scholarly Communication arena and related resources.

ACRL/ARL Institute on Scholarly Communication (December 5-7, 2007, Chicago, IL)
The first regional Institute for Scholarly Communication was hosted by the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois. Acceptance was competitive; participation was limited to 100 and seats were reserved for 20 participants outside Illinois. Stay tuned for more information on the next regional Institute.

Establishing a Research Agenda for Scholarly Communication: A Call for Community Engagement (November 2007)
This white paper, by ACRL's Scholarly Communications Committeee, encourages academics, librarians and their key partners to gather more data on practices that both enable and inhibit the production of scholarship and its communication. The report results from a one-day invitational meeting to collectively brainstorm the evidence needed to manage and influence the changing system of scholarly communication. It identifies eight themes, with research possibilities in each area, and invites broad comment.

Understanding Author Rights (recorded June 18, 2007)
 ACRL and ARL, through the Institute on Scholarly Communication, along with SPARC presented a special joint one hour Webcast aimed at librarians working with faculty on author rights. The sponsors are underwriting costs so that now you, too, can view the archived Webcast.

ACRL's Scholarly Communication Initiative
Documents defining the scope of ACRL's Scholarly Communication Initiative and describing work completed to date under the initiative.

Scholarly Communication Toolkit
An ACRL toolkit designed to support advocacy efforts that work toward changing the scholarly communication system and to provide information on scholarly communication issues for librarians, faculty, academic administrators, and other campus stakeholders.

Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication (June 2003)
This document is intended to be a foundation statement that provides overall guidance the ACRL scholarly communications initiative. 

ACRL Taking Action
Examples of ACRL's  participation in activities geared towards creating change in the scholarly communication arena.

ACRL-SPARC Forum
Together with SPARC, ACRL holds a forum at midwinter and annual conference to broaden the base of academic librarians who are knowledgeable about and concerned with scholarly communication issues. Descriptions, videos, audio recordings, slides and other supporting materials are available on the SPARC Web site.

Create Change
SPARC and ARL, with support from ACRL, re-launched the Create Change Web site in June 2006 to provide faculty with current information, perspectives, and tools that will enable them to play an active role in advancing scholarly information exchange in the networked environment. The ways faculty share and use academic research results are changing rapidly and irreversibly. By posing the question, "Shouldn’t the way we share research be as advanced as the Internet?", the site outlines how faster and wider sharing of journal articles, research data, simulations, syntheses, analyses, and other findings fuels the advance of knowledge. It also offers practical ways faculty can look out for their own interests as researchers. (2003 second edition of the popular "Create Change" brochure).

SCHOLCOMM Discussion List
Information on ACRL's email discussion list for scholarly communication issues, SCHOLCOMM.

Scholarly Communication Column
This C&RL News column highlights issues related to scholarly communication and publishing to stimulate conversation and exchange of information across campuses and among colleagues.