Scholarly Communication at XJTLU Library
The system of scholarly communication is showing numerous signs of stress and crisis. Challenges include technological innovation in production and dissemination of scholarship, challenges to traditional publishing practices concerning business models and intellectual property management, and barriers to accessing scholarship due to escalating prices of scholarly journals, etc.
Historically, the role of libraries in this lifecycle was confined to information consumer, collecting and organising scholarly resources for discovery and use by others. Now the scholarly communication services provided by libraries have innovated. Libraries now are a more prominent actor in the scholarly communication lifecycle.
Besides the adoption of collection development policies and reprioritisation of collection development budgets to positively respond to economic challenges of traditional scholarly publishing, XJTLU Library is committed to addressing the challenges presented by the changes currently underway in scholarly communication.
This guide aims to provide essential resources to XJTLU researchers, students and staff who want to learn more about scholarly communication issues. You will be able to find information about new alternatives and initiatives in scholarly communication, resources and tools to facilitate the publication and dissemination of your research, as well as the scholarly communication and research support services created and provided by the Library. While our researchers must play a central role in changing the scholarly communication system, the Library will be a ready partner in furthering this task.
Scholarly Communication Defined
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) defined scholarly communication as "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs."
Scholarly communication is frequently depicted as a lifecycle documenting the steps involved in the creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of a piece of scholarly research. One of the fundamental characteristics of scholarly research is that it is created as a public good to facilitate inquiry and knowledge.
