20 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 294 2018 information ecosystem issues such as privacy, social justice and big data, internet governance, and the like, library instruction may increasingly take shape as a program aimed at amplifying and extending the ability of community members to influence the way the information ecosystem works. Liaisons and the Changing Paradigm for Collections—The Role of the Selector Because selection of library materials has traditionally been a core responsibility of liaison work, it is perhaps the most high profile area in which liaison work will shift. As described above, the context for the proposed changes in the selector/liaison role is nothing less than a technology-driven revolution in scholarly communication, comparable in significance and impact to that which occurred with the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Greg Eow, associate director for collections in the MIT Libraries, reflected in May 2017 on the massive changes in scholarly communication that we are a part of, and how we will evolve to embrace these changes in service to our community—and the world: It’s no secret that the world of scholarly communications is in tumult unseen in half a millennium. We often talk about how we will transform global scholarly communications toward more openness, and the way we will do it is this: rather than libraries being a constellation of organizations that purchase paywalled content for a community of local users (outside-in collections), libraries will instead become an interlinked network of organizations that capture the research output of their institutions and openly distribute this content to the global community (inside- out collections). That is how we flip scholarly communications.3 This call for the libraries’ teaching and outreach staff to support our community in these expanded ways reflects trends that exist
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