Why You Should Never Pay for Articles!

Have you ever tried to get a journal artice you needed only to find that you had to pay for it? Do you know how much money the library already pays for journal articles. Did you know it’s Open Access Week? We need to start thinking about and talking about Open Access! Check out this YouTube video: http://youtu.be/L5rVH1KGBCY

 

Reforming Scholarly Communication

Should the academy worry about the current “system” of scholarly communication? The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) together with many institutions of higher education say, “Yes!”. What is scholarly communication? According to ACRL, it 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.”

Monographs and similar bodies of work are also a part of this “system”.
ACRL cautions that,

“the formal system of scholarly communication is showing numerous signs of stress and crisis. Throughout the second half of the 20th century commercial firms have assumed increasing control over the scholarly journals market, particularly in scientific, technical, and medical fields. The journal publishing industry has also become increasingly consolidated and is now dominated by a small number of international conglomerates. Prices for scholarly journals have risen at rates well above general inflation in the economy and also above the rate of increase of library budgets.” (http://tinyurl.com/cv3yxe).

What is being done to address the problem? Some professional organizations, special interest groups, and institutions of higher learning have responded by convening taskforces, organizing conferences, and offering workshops that analyze and deconstruct the issues and propose solutions. See how Cornell University Library has depicted the issue in its well-written web article, “Transforming Scholarly Communication and Writing.”

Posted by Karen Terrell Pardue,
Colorado State University – Pueblo.

MLA Citation Workshops Offered at the Library

Keli Hibbert, Writing Room Coordinator, and Courtney Bruch, Library Instruction Coordinator, will be conducting student workshops and offering tips to make MLA citation simple. Here are the dates and times for the MLA Citation Workshops. They will all be held in L214a on the second floor of the library.

M 9/22 1-2pm
T 9/23 12:30-1:30 pm

M 10/6 11:00-12:00
T 10/7 9:30-10:30
M 10/13 1:00-2:00
T 10/14 12:30-1:30
W 10/22 11:00-12:00
Th 10/23 9:30-10:30
W 10/29 1:00-2:00
Th 10/30 12:30-1:30

Open Access Movement Gets Boost from Harvard Faculty

American Libraries reported today that “Harvard University’s arts and sciences faculty voted unanimously February 12 to publish their scholarly articles online, making them available to the public at no charge. Under the plan, the university’s library will oversee a newly created Office of Scholarly Communication that will serve as a repository for the material. Faculty members will retain the copyright to their articles, subject to the university’s license, and can request a waiver of the license for particular articles in special cases.”
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2008/february2008/harvard.cfm