Contact: Mary Taylor
Executive Director, LITA
312-280-4269

For Immediate Release
June 3, 2005

New LITA publication offers guide to eScholarship

CHICAGO - Debra Shapiro, continuing education specialist at the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Library Science, has brought together a collection of essays to inform both librarians and scholars about ongoing efforts to create and support eScholarship in the new book “Escholarship: A LITA Guide.” The guide explores viable e-publishing alternatives that replace the more limited traditional scholarly communications structure. It addresses both the scholar's perspective and the librarian's experiences as it presents many innovative scholarly e-publishing initiatives.

Clifford Lynch gives a summary of issues, providing a broad context to the essays and identifying many of the remaining challenges. Members of the OCLC Office of Research address the technical infrastructure crucial to eScholarship. Catherine Candee and Roy Tennant report on the University of California eScholarship Initiative. Matthew Gibson of the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center provides a history of the library as publisher. Ann Lally and Joyce Ogburn address the evolving nature of scholarship and libraries and Meredith Clausen reports on eScholarship in architectural history.

“EScholarship: A LITA Guide” is available for $32 ($28.80 for ALA/LITA members). A printable order form and list of the LITA publications can be found at www.lita.org. When ordering “EScholarship: A LITA Guide,” please refer to reference number ISBN 0-8389-8348-0.

LITA is a division of the American Library Association.