ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL News ■ October 1998 / 655

Academ ic com m unity sets agenda 
to reclaim scholarly publishing

Universities have it within their power to
work with each other and scholarly societ­
ies to transform scholarly communication into
“a system of electronically mediated publi­
cations that will provide enhanced access to
scholarly information and relief from the es­
calating prices o f commercial publishers.” So
concluded the participants— university presi­
dents, provosts, faculty, librarians, counsels,
and representatives o f scholarly societies and
university presses— in a special Roundtable
on Managing Intellectual Property in Higher
Education. The findings of this group were
reported in the essay “To Publish and Per­
ish,” featured in the March 1998 issue of
Policy Perspectives, the publication o f the Pew
Higher Education Roundtable.

Noting that the rising cost of scholarly
publications is not a “library problem,” but a
symptom of the deeper conflict between the
sociology and economics o f academic pub­
lishing, the essay contrasts the expectation
o f an open exchange o f information within
the academy to the pricing and copyright
practices o f some commercial publishers that
control many o f the major scholarly publish­
ing venues. In an effort to regain some con­
trol over the research and scholarship gen­
erated by the academic community, the
Roundtable participants proposed a set of
five strategies to address the problem, in­

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 

cluding the disentangling of quantity and 
quality in faculty work, the leveraging of li­
brary resources through consortial purchas­
ing, educating faculty and administrators on 
the economics o f scholarly publishing, in­
vesting in electronic forms o f publishing, and 
decoupling peer reviewed evaluation from 
publication.

The Roundtable was hosted by the Johns 
Hopkins University and sponsored by the 
Association o f American Universities (AAU), 
the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), 
and the Pew Higher Education Roundtable. 
Funding was provided by the Gladys Krieble 
Delmas Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foun­
dation, and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

ARL in conjunction with the AAU and 
other organizations is pursuing a number of 
the recommendations in the report and has 
developed a Web site to track progress. To 
encourage broad discussion of the issues 
raised, ARL is also seeking the participation 
o f the academic library community in devel­
oping a clearinghouse o f responses to and 
experiences in the use of the report in dis­
cussions on campus and in the broader com­
munity. To obtain a copy o f the report, share 
com m ents, relate exp erien ces, or track 
progress, see http://www.arl.org/scomm/ 
pew/.— Mary Case, Association o f  Research 
Libraries, e-mail: marycase@arl.org.

viewed by a panel o f IS 
and DLS members.

Novem ber 1 
deadline fo r ACRL 
poster sessions
November 1, 1998, is the 
deadline for submitting a 
proposal for a poster ses­
sion at ACRL’s 9th National 
Conference, April 8 -1 1 , 
1999, in Detroit. Submis­
sion details may be found 
on the W eb at: http:// 
w w w . a l a . o r g / a c r l /  
call4prt.html.

http://www.arl.org/scomm/
mailto:marycase@arl.org
http://www.ala.org/acrl/