Scholarly Communication 101

The Association of College and Research Libraries Workshop, Scholarly Communication 101, was held at the University at Buffalo on June 4, 2009. The workshop was facilitated by Marianne Buehler, head of Publishing & Scholarship Support Services, Rochester Institute of Technology; Joy Kirchner, Collections, Licensing, Digital Scholarship, University of British Columbia Libraries; and Molly Kleinman, Copyright Specialist, Special Projects Librarian, University of Michigan Libraries. Scholarly communication enhances the sharing of research. Librarians can play a key role in this communication. ACRL has developed a scholarly communication toolkit. From the toolkit homepage:

New technology and innovative business models offer proven opportunities for enhancing the sharing of scholarly information -- research papers, primary data and other evidence, creative activity and other products of research and scholarship -- across institutions and audiences. This scholarly communication – understood 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 – promotes a shared system of research and scholarship.

The workshop addressed the topics of economics (journal publication process), copyright and author rights, open access and openness as a principle, and a discussion of new modes and models. I attended this workshop to further develop my knowledge of scholarly publication to support my work as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Library Innovation.