REFLECTIONS & DIRECTIONS ON SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS: A LIBRARY LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Scholarly communications is far from a new discipline, yet its rise as a defined specialization for librarians has taken off dramatically over the course of just the past decade. This rapid and fairly recent expansion of scholarly communications as a strategic area of focus has introduced both fresh opportunities and new challenges for academic library leaders. The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad overview of the past, current, and future scholarly communications landscape from the distinctive perspective of an academic research library director.

Topics covered include a broad review of the development of scholarly communications as a library specialization in recent years and the associated efforts that library leaders have undertaken during this period to initially educate themselves; to then foster enhanced understanding across library faculty, library staff, and the broader institution as to its purpose, strategic role, and place alongside more traditional and readily recognized library services; and to effectively integrate scholarly communications within an existing library organizational structure. As an adherent of the New Librarianship framework, this library leader also briefly considers how scholarly communications directly contributes to the user’s understanding of libraries as community platforms for improving society by facilitating knowledge creation.

The paper then addresses the challenges of justifying dedicated scholarly communications roles in modestly sized academic libraries; attracting, managing, and retaining new scholarly communications talent; scaling scholarly communications services over time; establishing and managing campus expectations; and successfully advocating for a gradual expansion of scholarly communications teams to ensure that services remain successful and not strained beyond a team’s capacity to effectively deliver them.

New and ongoing opportunities for academic library leaders include a broad reinvigoration of library strategic goals; a fresh institutional understanding of the library mission; cultivation of the growing recognition of librarians as fully integrated academic partners in the teaching and learning enterprise and across the entire research lifecycle; and powerful opportunities to contribute to the accessibility of higher education for all students. Looking ahead, this library leader then anticipates emerging trends with implications for library leadership, such as the growing need to interweave aspects of scholarly communications across all library operations.