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Survey Results

Scholarly Communication Education Initiatives · 11
Executive Summary
Background
The survey was distributed to the 123 ARL mem-
ber libraries in May 2007. Respondents were asked
to provide information about the nature of library-
initiated education activities about scholarly com-
munication (SC) issues that had taken place in their
institutions in the past three years or that were ex-
pected to take place soon. Seventy-three libraries
(59%) responded to the survey. Of those, 55 (75%)
indicated that the library has engaged in educa-
tional activities on scholarly communication (SC)
issues 13 (18%) have not but indicated that plan-
ning is underway. Only three libraries indicated
that they had not engaged in this activity another
two responded that this is the responsibility of an-
other, non-library unit of the institution.
Leadership of SC Education Initiatives
The majority of respondents indicated that the
leadership for these education initiatives comes
from within the library. Only 11 (17%) indicated
that a group outside of the library plays a leader-
ship role. In 25 cases (39%), leadership is shared
by some combination of library SC committee, SC
librarian, other library staff member, and outside
group or is otherwise distributed across the orga-
nization. In most of the remaining cases there is a
single leader. Twenty-one institutions reported that
this is a library committee, eight that it is a chief SC
librarian, three another library staff member, and
two a committee outside the library.
Chief Scholarly Communication Librarian
Twenty-one respondents (32%) identified a “Chief
SC Librarian” who has primary responsibility for
education initiatives. About half of these are at the
Assistant/Associate Librarian level. Only three of
these librarians (14%) devote 100% of their time to
SC initiatives. Most of the chief SC librarians have
split appointments and all but a few devote less
than 30% of their time to this work. Judging from
their titles, they frequently also have responsibility
for collections. A few have information resources,
technical services, or publishing in their title. In two
cases, they are a science librarian, probably due to
the intense interest that science librarians have in
the issue of the escalating costs of serials.
Another Library Staff Member
It was anticipated that many institutions would not
have a chief SC librarian yet would have another
librarian who was shouldering the primary SC re-
sponsibility. Eighteen respondents (28%) indicated
this was the case and 12 identified the position. The
survey results showed that, again, this responsibil-
ity most frequently is assumed by a collections or
science librarian. In other cases it is combined with
the role of copyright specialist, head of the institu-
tional repository (IR), manager of the journals pro-
gram, or whomever happened to be Chair of the SC
task force. As anticipated, these librarians devote
even less time to SC activities none more than half