Joint CURLSCONUL Scholarly Communications Group

1
Joint CURL/SCONUL Scholarly Communications Group

• Stephen Pinfield
• University of Nottingham

2
Remit

• To take a lead role in the fast changing area of
  scholarly communications on behalf of the
  academic library community in the UK and Ireland
  in order to assist it to influence, adapt to, and
  develop strategies in relation to
• the evolving role of library and information
  services within a changing scholarly
  communications landscape
• the evolving economics of scholarly
  communication
• building partnerships with interested parties to
  further the scholarly communications
• collection, retention and preservation policies
• cultural change.
• To monitor the impact of scholarly communications
  developments inside and outside the UK and
  Ireland (including USA, Europe and Australia) so
  as to engender a more informed and proactive
  approach to scholarly communications issues
  throughout the academic and wider library and
  academic communities in the UK and Ireland.
• To sponsor advocacy in academic communities about
  scholarly communication issues and to act as a
  principal body which interacts on, and acts as an
  advocate for, scholarly communications issues
  with relevant regional, national and
  international bodies.
• To keep the CURL and SCONUL community, as well as
  the wider library and academic communities,
  informed about scholarly communications issues
  and developments on a regular basis
• To identify and promote initiatives in key areas,
  especially through innovative project work
• To monitor, and report on, the Groups progress
  against an action plan agreed annually by the
  CURL and SCONUL Executive Boards

3
Remit

• To take a lead role in the fast changing area of
  scholarly communications on behalf of the
  academic library community in the UK and Ireland
  in order to assist it to influence, adapt to, and
  develop strategies in relation to
• the evolving role of library and information
  services within a changing scholarly
  communications landscape
• the evolving economics of scholarly
  communication
• building partnerships with interested parties to
  further the scholarly communications
• collection, retention and preservation policies
• cultural change.
• To monitor the impact of scholarly communications
  developments inside and outside the UK and
  Ireland (including USA, Europe and Australia) so
  as to engender a more informed and proactive
  approach to scholarly communications issues
  throughout the academic and wider library and
  academic communities in the UK and Ireland.
• To sponsor advocacy in academic communities about
  scholarly communication issues and to act as a
  principal body which interacts on, and acts as an
  advocate for, scholarly communications issues
  with relevant regional, national and
  international bodies.
• To keep the CURL and SCONUL community, as well as
  the wider library and academic communities,
  informed about scholarly communications issues
  and developments on a regular basis
• To identify and promote initiatives in key areas,
  especially through innovative project work
• To monitor, and report on, the Groups progress
  against an action plan agreed annually by the
  CURL and SCONUL Executive Boards

4
Scholarly Communication definition

• Definition adopted by the group (SPARC
  definition)
• Scholarly communication refers to the formal
  and informal processes by which the research and
  scholarship of academic staff, researchers, and
  independent scholars are created, evaluated,
  edited, formatted, distributed, organised, made
  accessible, archived, used, and transformed.
• Suggested new definition (from Paul Ayris)
• Scholarly communication encompasses everything
  that researchers, teachers and learners need in
  order to be effective. It covers the authoring,
  publishing, dissemination and reading of
  information produced for teaching, learning or
  research in whatever format, with the tools,
  measures and systems needed to provide access to
  and store these materials in perpetuity.

5
Priorities

• To work with a wide range of stakeholders
• Library CILIP, SPARC, LIBER, ISCA
• HE JISC, RIN, HEA, UUK, Russell Group, 94 Group
• Wider RCUK and Research Councils, Government
  (eg. DTI, OSI), HofC Science and Technology
  Committee, OFT, EU, ALPSP
• To represent HE library interests
• responding to consultations, surveys etc
• advocacy, lobbying etc
• To encourage advocacy within the HE community
• advocacy campaign
• To support relevant projects and initiatives
• access study
• JISC/RIN study in OA and libraries
• To keep the HE library community informed
• Website
• Newsletter

6
Recent successes

• Liaison with UUK and involvement in drafting UUK
  statement on published outputs and in drafting a
  recent update (September 2006)
• Liaison with Russell Group involvement in
  drafting RG position statement and providing
  update (December 2005)
• Response to EU sponsored study (August 2006) and
  ongoing liaison.
• Liaison with RCUK, SP spoke at RCUKLearned
  Societies meeting (June 2006)
• Meeting with Lord Sainsbury (July 2006)
• Response to British Academy study on digital
  information (May 2006)
• Input into design of studies initiatives eg
  access studies (2006)
• Discussions with ALPSP (ongoing), and OA
  publishers (July 2006)
• Involvement in new EUA OA Group
• Regular Newsletters

7
Questions

• Should we adopt a different definition of
  scholarly communication? What practical
  difference would this make to the work of the
  Group?
• Are there any important relevant areas not
  currently covered by the Group?
• Are there any CURL-specific issues not adequately
  covered?
• How should the Group develop its relationship
  with ALPSP and publishers?
• How can the Group influence/lobby key
  stakeholders eg government, UUK etc?