Cornell University Scholarly Communications Council
Cornell University Scholarly Communications Council
Charter and Goals for 2007
Scholarly Communication refers to the formal and informal processes by which the research and scholarship of academics, researchers, and independent scholars are created, evaluated, edited, formatted, distributed, organized, made accessible, archived, used, and transformed.
We start from the premise that economic, technological, social, and political forces are exerting evermore acute pressures on both producers and consumers of scholarship. But if the age of digital information has introduced new threats to various stages in the life cycle of scholarship, it has also created new opportunities for more open and flexible division of academic labor and sharing of results. The university-wide Scholarly Communications Council is convened to anticipate these threats and recommend action on these opportunities. The Council brings together, under the auspices of the Library, faculty, librarians, and administrators from across the Cornell community who interact with scholarly information as authors, editors, readers, publishers, and curators. This body will advise the Library on the course of action for its expanding engagement in the scholarly communications arena and will share its findings university wide.
Members of the Council may include representatives from the:
-Faculty including the Chair of the Library Faculty Advisory Board,
-Cornell University Press,
-Cornell Information Technologies, and
-the University Library including the Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communication & Collections), the Head of Information Services, Mann Library), Collections Coordinator, Olin Library, Director of Center for Innovative Publishing, Director of Digital Library and Information Technology, and the Intellectual Property Officer.
The Council has four goals:
(1) to describe the scholarly communication cultures and practices of a diversity of academic fields, as represented at Cornell;
(2) to analyze alternative models for communicating effectively and efficiently within and across networks of scholarly practice;
(3) to examine broader issues related to the organization and curation of Cornell’s scholarly output; and
(4) to explore what the roles the Library and the Press might play in conceptualizing, implementing, and promoting a wide variety of sustainable publishing initiatives to support and encourage the transformation of the scholarly communications landscape.