RLI 287  2 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC 2015 Part I: Context and Background Rikk Mulligan, ARL Program Officer for Scholarly Publishing and American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellow S cholarly communication is the process of producing, evaluating, disseminating, and preserving the research findings of scholars and scientists shared with academic communities and other interested parties. This process helps shape academic disciplines, legitimize lines of inquiry and research methods, and influence public policy it requires not only the availability of published materials, but also their review, use, and reuse as part of an active and evolving exchange of ideas. Scholarly publishing, the journals and monographs at the core of scholarly communications, has faced a series of challenges over the past few decades: discoverability, collection and preservation, and especially publication and production. Since the mid-20th century, new technologies have been and are being created to meet these challenges, yet many solutions have quickly become obsolete or spawned new problems, such as the attempt to reduce costs by using the Internet to distribute digital publications creating complications involving intellectual property rights, discoverability, and citation. Although the Internet initially appeared to offer a way to reduce the costs of scholarly publishing, particularly in the global north and other portions of the developed world, today, more than 20 years after its advent, its potential to deliver innovative modes of transmission and new communication formats remains largely untapped. Digital publishing has become a form of scholarly communication using PDF and ePub versions of articles and monographs, yet these remain tied to the long-struggling traditional publishing industry, particularly in the West, while more experimental and hybrid forms of scholarship remain on the fringe of student use and faculty acceptance. Although scholars have always communicated with one another, the system of scholarly communication began with the formation of learned societies in Europe and quickly spread to colonies and centers of learning throughout the world. Groups of philosophers, observers, and experimenters formed societies to help them work together to increase their knowledge and define common goals by sharing discoveries and experiments. Formal scholarly communication in the English language began in the collection of the notes and letters of the members of the Royal Society of London and their publication in a scholarly journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, in 1665. In addition to notes and letters, scientific articles quickly became the standard form used within such journals to disseminate observations and findings among society members, patrons, and sponsors. The system continued to evolve and expand as these societies proliferated, diversified, and grew. Journals became serial publications whose increasing number and volume required the development of indexing and cataloging practices in libraries and peer and editorial review processes by the societies to manage their production. However, because the audience for these works was relatively small and specialized, seldom were sales enough to cover production costs and labor. Scholarly publications therefore became the product of a gift or prestige Scholarly publishing, the journals and monographs at the core of scholarly communications, has faced a series of challenges over the past few decades: discoverability, collection and preservation, and especially publication and production.