Elizabeth C. Turtle and Martin P. Courtois, Scholarly Communication: Science Librarians as Advocates for Change, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Summer 2007.
Abstract: Science librarians are in a unique position to take a leadership role promoting scholarly communication initiatives and to aid in making scientific information more accessible. This article outlines steps and identifies resources that science librarians can employ to become scholarly communication advocates on their campuses.
PMR: I’ll expand from the article, and comment – fairly aggressively.
We began to realize, particularly as new online communication and distribution channels developed, the problem was not only economic, but encompassed a complex set of issues that includes legislation, public policy, authors rights, institutional repositories, access to scholarship, and new publishing models.
The current focus on these issues is crucial to science librarians for a number of reasons:
- journals remain critical to the research and teaching of science faculty;
- science journals remain the most costly;
- science faculty continue to publish extensively in subscription-based commercial and society journals;
- science faculty pursue grant funds from federal agencies that result in peer-reviewed publications to disseminate the research;
- tenure/promotion of science faculty depends to a large extent on journal publishing.
It is our view that the range of issues being addressed under the umbrella of scholarly communication offers tremendous opportunity to expand access to scientific information. As science librarians, it is important for us to be familiar with these issues, and able to act as scholarly communication advocates and agents for change at our institutions. With that goal in mind, the authors will outline steps and identify resources that science librarians can employ to be informed, prepared, and most importantly, committed to work with faculty and administrators to change the landscape of scholarly communication.
PMR: I agree with this, but it is not enough. We have a complex science process where the informatics domain – metrics, publishing karma, etc. – drives the reality through funding etc. Is the current position optimal? – I argue not. (There is no nirvana, but there are certainly better optima). In C21 those who manage and control information – this includes the commercial entities – GYM, etc. – manage the reality. (TimBL was so perceptive in his 1994 WWW1 presentation on this issue). Google and Microsoft are getting into science – and they are going to change bits of how it is done. Maybe they will become part of the new publishing? They certainly have the resources.
PMR: So if librarians wish to become part of the future of science they are going to have to come out of the dusty bookstores – rapidly. They have several assets – quality, professionalism, integrity but there are many more things they need. These include:
- ability to make IT work for science information. We need hackers, not cataloguers.
- an ability to take risks. The future is risky, but exciting. Unless you take risks you won’t get anywhere.
- a public face demanding change. We must throw away C19 copyright – it holds back science. Just do it – and take the risks. The pussyfooting I have seen over copyright epitomises the likelihood of libraries disappearing.
- a desire and ability to be embedded in the scientific process. Librarians should be in labs, not libraries
- courage to stand up and challenge the hegemony of publishers. You all know that if you all acted together you could make almost anything happen. Don’t simply keep on reacting to the insididous and incremental demands.
and remember there are no guarantees. Why should I get my computing from the University when I can get it from Amazon? My knowledge store when I can get it from Google? And others will arise. LIbrarians need to make themselves indispensable – and quickly.
As one example where librarians are asleep, you should be tackling the copyrighting and theft of scientific data. There is a bright new future in eScience and it is being crippled by commercial interests who are trying to hoard and resell data. It is now reasonable to say that publishers are a major force acting against data-rich science. Get in there and change it.