COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES ARTICLE ON SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

I just wanted to let my readers know about an awesome article I ran across in the February 2010 issue of College & Research Libraries on Scholarly Communication. The article, written by Adrian K. Ho and Daniel R. Lee, is titled, "Recognizing opportunities."

The article presents several scenarios that librarians can use when asked poignant questions by faculty (and students) about open-access, dissertation copyright, and research updates. What I like specifically about this article is that the authors give the readers specific scenarios that arise in the course of a librarian's day, and the way they should react when they do. I have often run across this scenario at the schools where I have worked, and think that librarians should not run away from these types of conversations.

When you engage with your constituents and address their gaps in access, patrons get to see that library as an organization that has its strengths and weaknesses. They understand that no library has every thing, that they have collections which have been purposefully developed. And, especially, that they have been developed with a specific intent, but subject to the contingencies of budget, taste, and human error. This article intends for it's readers to engage with it's users about issues which are impacting academic libraries at the current moment: access, budget, and idea ownership.

Possibly the scenario that I had to deal with the most, be it with faculty or students, is the problem of "limited journal access." This is a huge problem because most people just assume that libraries will automatically have access to everything. If this scenario pops up, the writers suggest that, "The librarian could take the chance to talk about the access barrier created by the spiraling costs of journal subscriptions...She could also bring up the concept of open access peer-reviewed journals" (83).