Scholarly Communications
Scholarly communication is the process by which scholars create, evaluate, and share the results of their research and creative work. In recent years, traditional forms of scholarly communication have become less economically sustainable as access restrictions and the high price of journals present barriers to maintaining an open and cost-effective system. Today, with common acceptance of digital publishing, scholarly communication concerns have broadened beyond journal costs to include issues affecting content creation and dissemination. Copyright law and author rights, open access publishing models, and author self-archiving in digital repositories are some of the most prominent of these issues.
Trends and consequences
Trend
Most faculty authors permanently assign copyright to publishers at the time their articles are accepted by a journal, thereby limiting the ability to legally reuse their works after publication.
Consequences
• In certain cases, scholars may have to ask a publisher for permission to legally reuse their own works for teaching and research.This limits the authors’ability to share their works openly and widely with their scholarly communities.
• Libraries have to pay additional fees to the publisher to reproduce and distribute (via interlibrary loan and course reserve services) the works of faculty authors.
• Permanent copyright ownership of faculty scholarship by publishers enables monopolies of the biggest publishers to erode healthy economic competition, thereby reducing consumer options.
Trend
North American research library budgets cannot keep pace with annual inflationary costs of journals.
Consequences
• Library budgets for the purchase of scholarly monographs are likely to diminish as a result of increased spending to retain journals and other subscription-based resources.
• Funds for new journal subscriptions are unlikely to be available unless other titles are cancelled.
• Even current subscriptions may be unsustainable in a scenario where a library’s budget remains stable at best from year to year.
Emerging Solutions
Faculty authors and journal editors are regaining control of scholarly communication in their fields by publishing in and choosing to serve on the editorial boards of open access journals. Open access works within the framework of U.S. copyright law to maximize access to scholarly works, while offering more cost-effective options than the traditional annual subscription-based model.
National initiatives, such as the National Institutes of Health Public Access Mandate, ensure public access to research works funded by tax dollars. Institutional open access policies — such as those implemented at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — ensure that authors retain greater control of their copyrights by choosing where to publish, while their works receive wider access and thus higher visibility.
The Creative Commons licensing model offers authors more flexibility and greater control of their copyrights.
University Library's Role in Scholarly Communciation
Northwestern University Library is committed to increasing its outreach and education on scholarly communication issues for the benefit of the University community.The Library wishes to engage faculty in dialogue about retaining their rights as authors using available negotiation tools such as the CIC Author Addendum, endorsed by the Office of the Provost and the General Faculty Committee.
In 2008 the Library appointed a scholarly communication librarian and established a Scholarly Communication Committee to disseminate information to the University community on copyright law and author rights, open access publishing, and the latest economic and legislative trends affecting scholarly publishing.The Library also invites national experts to speak on a wide range of scholarly communication topics, such as copyright law and the future of academic publishing.
Education and Outreach
The scholarly communication librarian offers workshops and is available to attend faculty meetings to discuss copyright in research and face-to-face classroom settings as well as in online teaching environments such as Blackboard® and other course management systems.
Individual Consultation
The scholarly communication librarian is available for individual appointments with faculty who are interested in discussing how to negotiate publishing agreements, publishing in or editing open access journals, or any other matters pertaining to author rights or copyright permissions and rights management.
Self-archiving
The Northwestern University Library Digital Repository is being developed to provide services and tools for faculty to preserve and access their creative works. Faculty interested in digital repository services at the Library or through other organizations may contact the scholarly communication librarian.
