2018-2020

Mapping the Scholarly Communication Infrastructure

Mapping Scholarly Communication Infrastructure is an effort to study the current state of digital scholarship infrastructure in the U.S. and to help envision a more modernized and sustainable system that would enhance scholarly communication at colleges, universities, and research libraries across the country.

With a grant from The Andrew Mellon Foundation (see press release) from 2018-2020, this project will focus its efforts on mapping out the range of infrastructure that comprises the system of scholarly communication, and surveying colleges and universities to understand their current investment practices in this infrastructure.

Details of the project are posted on the project website for those who would like to know more.

Project Publications:

Mapping the Scholarly Communication Landscape Census 2019. (June 20, 2019). This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Census of Scholarly Communication Infrastructure Providers.

Case Studies – Scholarly Communication Landscape Census 2019 (August 24, 2020). These case studies illustrate four examples of organizations that completed the Census of Scholarly Communication Infrastructure Providers.

Why Are So Many Scholarly Communication Infrastructure Providers Running a Red Queen’s Race? (July 23, 2019). This blog post shares Katherine Skinner’s observations, post-Census, on why so many scholarly communication resource providers are barely surviving year-to-year – especially those SCRs operating in close coordination with and oversight by the scholarly community.

A Bibliographic Scan of Digital Scholarly Communication Infrastructure. (May 18, 2020). This Bibliographic Scan provides an extensive literature review and listing of major projects, programs, and organizations in the current digital scholarship ecosystem.

Surveys:

PDF version of the Census instrument This census was produced to assess factors influencing the sustainability and “fit-for-purpose” of Scholarly Communication Resources (SCRs) – tools, services, and systems. It is intended to help to guide development of and investments in scholarly communication infrastructures. See above for the June 2019 report and July 2019 blog post on the Census data.

PDF version of the Survey instrument This survey was produced to assesses library investments in Scholarly Communications Resources (SCR’s) – tools, services, and systems. It is intended to provide a baseline and broad view of where academic libraries financially invest in scholarly communications infrastructures today. A report based on the findings of the 2019-2020 survey will be made available in Summer 2020.