Digital Scholarly Communication: A Snapshot of Current Trends Nancy L. Maron and K. Kirby Smith, Strategic Services Analysts, Ithaka Introduction W hile society journals, university press publications, and conference proceedings still form the backbone of scholarly publishing, many new digital scholarly resources have emerged that make use of the space, speed, and interactivity of the Internet. The university library still plays a central role in distributing many resources, but the networked digital environment has enabled the creation of new works that are accessible to end users directly. The decentralized distribution of these new digital resources can make it difficult to fully appreciate their range and number, even for academic librarians tasked with being familiar with valuable resources across the disciplines. In spring 2008, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) engaged Ithaka to help survey the broader landscape of online resources currently in use by the scholarly community, to understand more about the resources that exist, and to highlight particular examples of innovation. This report describes some of the ways in which scholarly communication is occurring in a digital world.1 Methodology ARL’s objective was not to conduct an exhaustive survey of the resources in use across all disciplines, but rather to highlight interesting examples of digital scholarly resources, their contribution to the scholarly process, and the organizational and business models that help them survive and thrive. To that end, Ithaka’s Strategic Services group helped coordinate and evaluate the results of interviews with faculty members about the digital scholarly RLI 263 10 APRIL 2009 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC
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