march05b.indd scholarly communication Karen Williams The ACRL Scholarly Communications Toolkit now online A resource for administrators, faculty, and librarians Editor’s note: The ACRL Scholarly Com­munications Toolkit was created by Kar­ en Williams during a recent sabbatical leave from her position at the University of Ari­ zona Library. Williams developed the con­ tent of the toolkit in collaboration with the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee and was assisted in the design of the toolkit site by Adam Engelsgjerd, also of the Uni­ versity of Arizona Library. The toolkit, which is now available online, is linked from the ACRL Scholarly Communication Web page at www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/scholar­ lycomm/scholarlycommunication.htm. Meeting the goals of the initiative The purpose of the ACRL Scholarly Commu­ nications Initiative is to work in partnership with other library and higher education or­ ganizations to encourage reform in the sys­ tem of scholarly communication. Educating librarians to serve as advocates and change agents is an important strategy in the suc­ cess of this initiative. And we are beginning to taste success. A progress report on the initiative, which appeared in the September 2004 issue of C&RL News, outlines a number of achieve­ ments in our joint efforts with other organi­ zations to create change. Librarians’ voices were strong among those supporting open access through PubMed Central to journal articles resulting from research funded by the National Institutes of Health. We persuaded many of our campuses to decline or renegoti­ ate “Big Deal” electronic licenses with major publishers. We submitted recommendations to the U.K. Parliament’s inquiry into scientifi c publication, an inquiry that has resulted in a very strong endorsement for principles of open access. While these developments are certainly encouraging, achieving fundamental reform in the system of scholarly communication will be a long and difficult process. It will require even broader involvement from academic librarians and much greater engagement on the part of faculty and other researchers. We need to create a cycle of continuous learning and action. Working toward creating change The Web­based ACRL Scholarly Communi­ cations Toolkit is designed to support ad­ vocacy efforts that work toward changing the scholarly communication system and to provide information on scholarly com­ munication issues for librarians, faculty, academic administrators, and other campus stakeholders. The toolkit aims to do this in ways that meet the needs of the full range of academic institutions represented in the ACRL membership base. A primary goal of the toolkit is to summarize key issues and content in order to give readers quick, ba­ sic information on scholarly communication topics. Karen Williams is associate university librarian for academic programs, University of Minnesota Libraries, e-mail: kaw@umn.edu. © 2005 Karen Williams March 2005 199 C&RL News mailto:kaw@umn.edu www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/scholar Actions Librarians Can Take As Librarians • Educate faculty, staff, students, and univer­ sity administrators on the business practices of different journal publishers and their impact on the health of scholarly communication. • Consider rejecting bundled or aggre­ gated license agreements and issue a public statement explaining why. • Consider canceling unreasonably expen­ sive journals and issue a public statement explaining why. • Negotiate with vendors of electronic content (journals and databases) for full access by walk­in patrons. • Negotiate with vendors of electronic content for the right to use the content for interlibrary loan and electronic reserves. • Include open access journals in the library catalog. • Work with your campus to launch an open access, open archives initiative­com­ pliant institutional e­print repository, for both texts and data. • Help faculty deposit their research arti­ As Authors • Modify any contract you sign with a pub­ lisher to ensure that you retain the rights to use your work as you see fi t, including posting it to a public archive or institutional repository. • Become aware of the pricing policies of journals (including commercial electronic journals) in your fi eld. • Submit papers to quality journals that have reasonable pricing practices. Where possible, publish in open access journals, which employ funding models that do not charge readers or their institutions for access. Notify unreasonably expensive jour­ cles in the institutional repository.To create momentum, the library could help faculty put their past publications into digital form, deposit them in the repository, and enter the relevant metadata. • Consider publishing an open access journal. • Help open access journals launched at the university become known to other li­ braries, indexing services, potential funders, authors, and readers. • Consider offering to assure the long­term preservation of some specific body of open access content. • Consider redirecting some funds from the materials budget to pay author fees for faculty who publish in open access journals. • Consider buying institutional member­ ships in organizations such as the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coali­ tion (SPARC), the Public Library of Science PloS), BioMed Central, or other groups that seek to increase broad and cost­effective access to peer­reviewed scholarship. nals of your decision to submit elsewhere. To find peer­reviewed open access journals in your field, see the Directory of open ac­ cess Journals. • When applying for research grants, ask the foundation for funds to pay the process­ ing fees charged by open access journals. Many foundations are already on the record as willing to do this. • Deposit preprints and/or postprints in disciplinary or institutional repositories. There is currently no official or complete list of repositories or archives, but for more in­ formation, see www.earlham.edu/~peters/ fos/lists.htm#archives. As Reviewers journal of the reason for your refusal. • Consider declining offers to review for • When asked to referee a paper for an unreasonably expensive journals. Notify the open access journal, accept the invitation. As Editors • If you are an editor or on the editorial board of a subscription journal, examine the pricing practices of that journal. If ap­ propriate, start an in­house discussion on pricing. C&RL News March 2005 • Consider relinquishing editorial posts with unreasonably expensive journals. Notify the journal of the reason for your refusal. • When asked to serve on the editorial board for an open access journal, accept the invitation. 200 www.earlham.edu/~peters http:repository.To Actions Librarians Can Take As Professionals • Encourage your professional associations to maintain (or adopt!) reasonable prices and user­friendly access terms. • Encourage your professional associations to explore alternatives to contracting or selling its publications to a commercial publisher. • Encourage your professional associations to consider creating enhanced competitors to expensive commercial titles. • Encourage your professional associations to consider launching an open access journal or creating a disciplinary repository in your fi eld. The toolkit is designed with three path­ ways: one for academic administrators, one for faculty, and one for librarians. For the most part, the same issues are addressed in the pathways, but the emphasis and amount of information that is included changes for the particular audience. Key issues chosen for inclusion are the effects of infl ationary price increases and relatively stable information access budgets; new alternatives for dissemi­ nating scholarly information; aggregated or bundled electronic content; author control of intellectual property; and publisher mergers and acquisitions. In addition to a basic introduction of each topic, other tools featured in the site include a bibliography that selects and annotates a few key items from among the wealth of information available, and a selective Webli­ ography providing annotated links to such items as online exhibits, sample publishing agreements, directories, price data, and a list of other associations working in this arena. PowerPoint presentations and brochures cre­ ated by librarians for use on their respective campuses can often be adapted for local use by others. The three Act Now! lists suggest ways in which, working together, we can effect change. Share your materials and ideas The key word here is “debut.” The toolkit was created as a living site with the inten­ tion of revising content and adding tools as the issues change. The site will debut with tools contributed largely by members of the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee. The committee encourages ACRL members to submit other tools and suggestions in or­ der to make the toolkit a vibrant and useful asset. The toolkit will serve as a model for the collegial sharing of educational materi­ als. Those wishing to submit materials are strongly encouraged to include a Creative Commons license.1 Instructions for submit­ ting ideas and materials will be available on the toolkit site. A taste of the toolkit is included here with the list of Actions Librarians Can Take2 to foster reform in the system of scholarly communication. Notes 1. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work, provided they give you credit—and only on the con­ ditions you specify. See creativecommons. org/. 2. These sources were used as the basis for this list of actions: • Peter Suber has compiled and sum­ marized a list of college and university actions against high journal prices. The list includes many links to policy statements. See www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists. htm#actions. • The Create Change brochure pub­ lished by the Association of College and Re­ search Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC, and SPARC Europe. See www.createchange.org/resources/brochure. html. • Suber's site also contains a list of actions to further the cause of open access. See www. earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#do. March 2005 201 C&RL News www.createchange.org/resources/brochure www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists