Scholarly Communication
According to the Association of College and Research Libraries, scholarly communication is “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 defined or depicted as “a lifecycle documenting the steps involved in the creation, publication, dissemination, and discovery of a piece of scholarly research.” (ACRL)
Issues in scholarly communication include:
- Unsustainable costs for individuals and libraries.
- Lack of access by individuals who would benefit from or contribute to the research being done.
- Predatory publishers who exploit and monetize the OA model by charging authors to publish in low-quality, unvetted journals.
- Authors who lose copyrights to their creations.
- Reproducibility concerns and the potential erosion of public trust in well-conducted research.
The UCSB Library is committed to partnering with faculty to address the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by the transformative changes in scholarly communication. The Library supports the open access publishing efforts of UCSB-affiliated authors through the UCSB Open Access Publishing Fund, open access publishing in eScholarship, and author rights guidance. The UCSB Library also promotes the open dissemination and discoverability of scholarship consumed and created by UCSB scholars.
This guide has resources and tools to help authors navigate the scholarly communication system and maximize the impact of knowledge.
Contact: openaccess@library.ucsb.edu for publishing support.
The Publication Cycle
"The Publication Cycle" by the University of Winnipeg Library, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.