Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery

Scholarly Communication

Scope and Purpose:

This page was created to alert UMBC students, faculty and staff to current events in scholarly communication, and to highlight our partners, both commercial and academic, in addressing the scholarly communications crisis.

UMBC Documents on Scholarly Communication

• UMBC's Digital Collections page

  This site features selected materials from the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Currently, the majority of the digital collections draw upon the rich and unique holdings of the Special Collections and Archives, making them available online to researchers on campus and around the world. Items cover a broad range of topics and include photographs, electronic theses and dissertations from UMBC candidates, posters, playbills, and other ephemera.

• The Future of Scholarly Communication: A White Paper

  "The USMAI libraries recommend that the USMAI constituencies construct a new vision of the future that supports "open access" and alternative publishing models that foster competition and more efficient methods of distributing and evaluating scholarly work."

• Library Policy Committee Report to the Faculty Senate

  This report was presented to the UMBC Faculty Senate at its April 13, 2004 meeting.

• Open Access Fact Sheet

  The UMBC Library is exploring several open access options, several of which are expounded upon here. Others options, including SPARC, which is not covered here because of the cost, are still viable and thus worthly of consideration.

Currents

• DeepDyve - a Research, Rent, Read Service, with article rentals at 99 cents each

  October, 2009. Could services like this be part of a solution for academe? It was called 'the Netflix of Academic Journals' in an October 29, 2009 Chronicle of Higher Education article.

• Open letter from liberal arts college presidents supporting the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009

  September, 2009. See also following entry:

• Insider Higher Ed, article on the above cited letter

  September 24, 2009 -- provides context for the above Open Letter.

• The Dark Side of Online Journals: Commercial publishers dominate online scholarly journal production

  June, 2009 -- Summarizes economic and market forces at work in the publishing industry against the interests of higher education institutions.

• Scholarly Communication: Crisis and Revolution

  February 2, 2009 -- Summarizes forces which are creating rapid and fundamental changes in academic publishing, and 'in how scholars will want to receive, review, and distribute contributions to their fields of study.'

• University Council Approves Open Access Plan: BU to create free archive of faculty research

  February 17, 2009 -- 'Boston University took a giant step towards greater access to academic scholarship and research on February 11, when the University Council voted to support an open access system that would make scholarly work of the faculty and staff available online to anyone, for free, as long as the authors are credited and the scholarship is not used for profit.'

• Author's Rights, Tout de Suite

  October, 2008 -- The latest Digital Scholarship publication, is designed to give journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author's rights and to foster further exploration of this topic though liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites.

• CAUT Intellectual Property Advisory: Retaining Copyright in Journal Articles

  July, 2008 -- Canadian Association of University Teachers advises on faculty retention of copyright.

• Sustainability and Revenue Models for Online Academic Resources

  May, 2008 -- Analysis of what needs to be done to make academic online publishing projects economically feasible in the long term.

• SCOAP3 - Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics

  December, 2007 -- As described by Gene Sprouse on the liblicense email list at Yale: SCOAP3 is an initiative to convert all of the major high energy physics (HEP) journals to Open Access. It would redirect library funds for HEP journals to a consortium that would then negotiate with publishers in order to reach the OA goals. Although the SCOAP3 initiative sails under the banner of Open Access, it brings in its wake the prospect of reducing the aggregate cost to libraries of HEP journals.

• Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication: Survey Findings from the University Of California

  August, 2007 -- Reports and analyzes 1,100+ survey responses covering a range of scholarly communication issues from faculty across disciplines and ranks. Results (among others): faculty shown as conforming to the norms in their disciplines; promotion/tenure processes are central to reinforcing conservative behaviors.

• University Publishing In A Digital Age

  July, 2007 -- 'Argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.'

• Results of a Study on Researchers' Acceptance and Use of Open Access Publishing

  March, 2007 -- Reports that despite acceptance of Open Access principles, scientists are reluctant to publish in Open Access outlets.

• ASCB (American Society for Cell Biology) Position Paper

  February, 2007--Supports efforts to require free public access to biomedical research.

• An Open Letter to All University Presidents and Provosts Concerning Increasingly Expensive Journals

  2005 -- Recommendations for university action regarding excessive journal costs, with background information on cost factors.

• Cornell Faculty Senate resolution on scholarly publishing

  May 11, 2005 -- This statement encourages Cornell faculty to become familiar with the pricing policies of journals in their specialty, cease supporting publishers who engage in exorbitant pricing, consider publishing in open access journals, and submit their publications to the university repository, among other things.

• Ownership & Access in Scholarly Publishing

  Wednesday, April 6, 2005 -- The Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Libraries are co-hosting a free forum on open access publishing.

• Scholarly Publishing Statement of Principles

  March 18, 2005 -- "We resolve that the Berkeley campus will take the following steps immediately..."

• NIH Grant Recipients Are 'Asked' to Post Data

  February 4, 2005--Researchers who receive grant money from the National Institutes of Health will be "asked" to submit their results to a public Web site within a year after they are published in a scientific journal, under a new and controversial NIH policy announced yesterday.

• Notice: Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information

  September 3, 2004--"...it is essential to ensure that scientific information arising from NIH-funded research is available in a timely fashion to other scientists, health care providers, students, teachers, and the many millions of Americans..."

• Scientists want research papers freely available

  August 29, 2004--"Twenty-five Nobel Prize-winning scientists today are calling for the government to make all taxpayer-funded research papers freely available."

• Scottish Science Information Strategy Working Group's [Open Access] Declaration (Draft)

  August 16, 2004--"We believe that the interests of Scotland will be best served by the rapid adoption of open access to scientific and research literature".

• Open Archives Initiative Data Providers. Part II: Science and Technology

  July 20, 2004--From Library Hi Tech News 21, no. 5 (June 2004): 22-30; self-published edition. Includes discussion of Bioline, CERN Document Server (CDS), Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) and Organic Eprints.

• Choice? Springer Ups the Ante on Open Access

  July 13, 2004--"Springer, now the second-largest commercial STM publisher in the world, has announced that authors publishing in any of its journals can now choose to make their work freely, "permanently" available in return for an author charge."

• Currents Archive

  In order to keep this page from getting out of hand, we are archiving older links here.

Partners in Scholarly Communication

• BioMed Central

  "BioMed Central is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research...BioMed Central is committed to ensuring efficient and effective quality control through full and stringent peer review."

• Create Change

  "Seeks to address the crisis in scholarly communication by helping scholars regain control of the scholarly communication system-- a system that should exist chiefly for them, their students, and their colleagues in the worldwide scholarly community, not primarily for the benefit of publishing businesses and their shareholders. Sponsored by Association of Research Libraries, Association of College and Research Libraries, and SPARC with support from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation."

• Public Library of Science (PLOS)

  "The Public Library of Science is a non-profit organization whose mission is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource."

• SPARC

  "Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an alliance of universities, research libraries, and organizations built as a constructive response to market dysfunctions in the scholarly communication system."

• Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)

  "ACRL's Scholarly Communication Initiative"

• Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)

  "Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication"

• Association of Research Libraries (ARL)

  "Issues in Scholarly Communication"

• ARL Statistics and Measurement Program

  Monograph and Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries, 1986-2006

• International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

  "IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation"

• Council on Library and Information Resources, pub114: New-Model Scholarship: How Will It Survive? Executive Summary

  Explores emerging types of scholarship and the models of stewardship for disseminating and preserving them.

• Open Access Now

  BioMed Central's compilation of materials from the UK House of Commons Science & Technology Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publications

• Nature's Open Access Forum

  Articles on Open Access

• Directory of Open Access Journals

  Lists over 800 open access journals

University Web Pages on Scholarly Communication

• Cornell

  Summary of the Problem, the Reasons, the Solutions

• The Johns Hopkins Scholarly Communications Group

  "Dedicated to fostering open access to quality information..."

• MIT

  Issues in the Journal Publishing Environment

• University of California

  Page on Reshaping Scholarly Communication

• University of Maryland Health Sciences & Human Services Library

  Scholarly Communications in Transition

• Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

  Posted by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., University of Houston. Last updated 12/18/2007

• Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals

  Also Posted by Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

• Open Access Webliography

  Posted by Adrian K. Ho and Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

• UMCP

  Scholarly Communication, UM Libraries

• UMUC Center for Intellectual Property

  Scholarly Publishing Initiatives

Institutional Repositories

• DRUM - Digital Repository at the University of Maryland

• University of California, eScholarship Repository

• Cornell University's digital repository

• MIT's digital repository

• DSpace Federation

  DSpace is the software used by UMCP, Cornell, MIT, etc. for their digital repositories

• UMI Digital Commons

  A for-profit option

• ProQuest Digital Dissertations

  A for-profit option

• NDLTD - The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations