Issues in Scholarly Communication

Academic journal prices continue to rise much faster than inflation (and library budgets), university presses have funding problems, and scholars are considering alternative forms of publication. Traditional publishing patterns that often required authors to sign over their copyright to commercial publishers, and libraries then to buy back this scholarship at high prices, are being called into question. This page gives a snapshot of some key issues and creative proposals to deal with this crisis.

The Problem

Reshaping the World of Scholarly Communication
From Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship, v.7 no.1 (Spring 2006)

The High Cost of Scholarly Journals (And What to Do About It)
By Edwards, Richard; Shulenburger, David. Change, Nov/Dec2003, Vol.35, Issue 6, p10, 10p, 5c.

Transforming Scholarly Communication and Libraries (Cornell University)
Excellent overview; includes their much-publicized response to price increases from Elsevier, a dominant scholarly publisher.

To Publish and Perish
From Policy Perspectives, March 1998, Volume 7,Number 4.

Sticker Shock
A humorous presentation from the Cornell University Engineering and Computer Science Library.

Origins of the Crisis in Scholarly Communication (Iowa State University)

Journal Pricing, Inflation, and the Trinity Library

Scholarly Communication (Association of Research Libraries)

Issues in Scholarly Communication (University of Illinois)
Includes a useful news blog.

Creative Responses

Create Change (Association of Research Libraries)

Public Library of Science

SPARC

Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress)

BioOne

Johns Hopkins Scholarly Communications Group

A New World of Scholarly Communication
Originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, November 7, 2003, p. B16.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography
Compiled by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., University of Houston.

7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons