Scholarly Communications – Library 101 Toolkit

Topic	Information Privilege
	Key Takeaways: Lots of scholarly information is inaccessible to people outside of large, well-funded research universities like Duke. There are barriers to information access that people might encounter due to their geography, access to technology, identity, status, financial situation, etc. The Open Access movement seeks to address these disparities.

Key Takeaways:

Lots of scholarly information is inaccessible to people outside of large, well-funded research universities like Duke.
There are barriers to information access that people might encounter due to their geography, access to technology, identity, status, financial situation, etc.
The Open Access movement seeks to address these disparities.

Topic	Journal Prestige
	Key Takeaways: All scholarly sources or peer-reviewed journals are not held in equally high regard. The most common measures of journal prestige, citation count and the related Impact Factor, have limitations and are not a direct measure of quality of the scholarship therein.

Key Takeaways:

All scholarly sources or peer-reviewed journals are not held in equally high regard.
The most common measures of journal prestige, citation count and the related Impact Factor, have limitations and are not a direct measure of quality of the scholarship therein.

Topic	Paywalls and Information Costs
	Key Takeaways: Scholarly publications are not typically free to access and subscription costs for certain resources are exorbitant. Journals in certain disciplines (especially engineering, business, & medicine) have higher price tags than others. While a lot of scholarly content is discoverable on Google, attempting to access the full text often leads to a page from a publisher asking for money, a paywall. Since individuals cannot afford to buy/subscribe to journals, university libraries pay large sums of money to provide institutional access.

Key Takeaways:

Scholarly publications are not typically free to access and subscription costs for certain resources are exorbitant. Journals in certain disciplines (especially engineering, business, & medicine) have higher price tags than others.
While a lot of scholarly content is discoverable on Google, attempting to access the full text often leads to a page from a publisher asking for money, a paywall.
Since individuals cannot afford to buy/subscribe to journals, university libraries pay large sums of money to provide institutional access.

Topic	Scale of Scholarly Publishing
	Key Takeaways: Scholarly publishing is an industry whose products range from books to journal articles to data. Millions of articles are published every year from hundreds of countries around the world. (Advanced/Extension) Only four to five major publishers control the majority of scholarly articles published, which leads to rising prices and less choice for libraries when negotiating contracts for purchasing access to content.

Key Takeaways:

Scholarly publishing is an industry whose products range from books to journal articles to data. Millions of articles are published every year from hundreds of countries around the world.
(Advanced/Extension) Only four to five major publishers control the majority of scholarly articles published, which leads to rising prices and less choice for libraries when negotiating contracts for purchasing access to content.

Topic	Subscription and Open Access
	Key takeaways: Fees for access are not the only possible source of revenue for publishers, and charging publication fees to authors is a common practice. There are implications of subscription vs open access models in terms of access to information for readers and access to publication opportunities for authors (Advanced/Extension) There are nuances to open access models (e.g., hybrid journals) and alternatives to simple author-pays (e.g., “green” open access or library sponsorship initiatives).

Key takeaways:

Fees for access are not the only possible source of revenue for publishers, and charging publication fees to authors is a common practice.
There are implications of subscription vs open access models in terms of access to information for readers and access to publication opportunities for authors
(Advanced/Extension) There are nuances to open access models (e.g., hybrid journals) and alternatives to simple author-pays (e.g., “green” open access or library sponsorship initiatives).