Director's Desk - Issues in Scholarly Communication

The Senate Committee on Libraries prepared a “Resolution on Scholarly Communication and Library Serials Acquisitions” this spring. Presented to the Faculty Senate on April 9, 2004, it was passed after some discussion. The full text of the resolution can be found at: http://www.gwu.edu/%7Efacsen/faculty_senate/pdf/Agenda4-9-04.pdf. The purpose of the resolution is two-fold. First, the resolution serves to alert faculty to the serious budget impact of changing pricing paradigms for serials. Second, the resolution encourages faculty to consider the role they can play in the scholarly publishing process to support reasonable price increases and promote high-quality alternatives to traditional scholarly publishing venues through their activities on editorial boards, review committees, and professional associations. To learn more about this issue, visit Gelman Library’s Changes in Scholarly Communication site at: http://www.gwu.edu/gelman/guides/general/scholarly.html.

To engage in a lively discussion of this issue from all viewpoints, go to Nature’s Web Focus: Access to the Literature at http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/. See the article on the Journals@Himmelfarb project to learn how changing pricing paradigms are affecting Himmelfarb collections.

Anne Linton, Director
Library Services