UCSB Libraries Scholarly Communication

Academic and research communities are faced with increasingly difficult and complex choices regarding discovery, access, funding, and preservation of scholarly information. Unsustainable business models of the publishing community are forcing libraries to make difficult choices and look for new ways to build and preserve collections and meet the information demands of their users. Library budgets are declining while prices for scholarly research are escalating. The impact of and access to the research output produced by UC faculty and researchers is lessened because of economic conditions. New digital and networked technologies can provide alternative forums for scholarly publishing -- faster, and at an economically sustainable cost. As libraries work through this transitional time, faculty may find limits on immediate access to scholarly publications, experience difficulty publishing their scholarly research using traditional publishing avenues, and encounter difficulty accepting new publishing models.

The UCSB Libraries are committed to addressing the challenges presented by the new models of scholarly communication and publishing. In recognition of the transformation occurring in scholarly communication and publishing, the UCSB Libraries and its UC constituents are developing opportunities for education and action. Within the University of California several avenues have been established to review, evaluate, and as necessary develop policies and guidelines to address the issues:

The Office of Scholarly Communication was created in 2004 to facilitate internal partnerships among the UC libraries, faculty, and administration and, as appropriate, with external constituents.

The eScholarship program was designed to facilitate the creation, peer review, management, dissemination, and preservation of scholarly communication through use of emerging technologies.

The Academic Council Special Committee on Scholarly Communication has been charged with assessment of a variety of issues related to scholarly communication.

The UC Scholarly Communication Officers Group reports to the University Librarians and is composed of librarians from the ten UCs. The group works to establish appropriate collaborative partnerships and liaison opportunities among campus scholarly communications efforts and at the CDL.

The UCSB Committee on Scholarly Communication will provide input on the transformation of scholarly communication.

Recent Developments: The eScholarship Program released its Postprint Repository Service on February 23, 2005. For more information, please see http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/about.html. The National Institutes of Health provides a Public Access Policy Information website at http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm.