IS 511 Scholarly Communications

A basic level of scholarly communication literacy and sophistication is an increasing requirement of academic librarians, both to inform their work and to make those librarians effective partners in the scholarly enterprise. This course is designed to cultivate and develop that literacy. It will address topics such as: the established modes of scholarly communication and the emergence of alternatives influenced by the growth of social media and other forms of networked communication; the divide between formal and informal modes of scholarly communication and the current state of flux as that divide begins to collapse; the varying economies of scholarship (the reputation and prestige economy, the financial economy both in the market and in the mission-driven research academy, and the economic impact of scholarly communication decisions upon library budgets); modes of credentialing scholarship and their impact upon professional advancement, with special attention to peer review and its (current?) discontents; scholarship as intellectual property and the most effective ways to manage that property and achieve scholarly goals; and issues in access and preservation as they relate to ensuring the future of the scholarly conversation.