SCOOP: Actors and Influencers in the Scholarly Communication Space

Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the organizations who either act exclusively in or who wield influence upon the scholarly communication space. Some of these organizations are directed specifically at academic libraries, while others have a wider sphere of influence, counting scholarly publishers, researchers, and others among their members and participants. Atla affiliates with many of these organizations; however, there are several others that our members may wish to explore and take advantage of the free resources or professional development opportunities offered by them as a means of keeping up with issues and trends in scholarly communication.

Atla Allied Organizations

Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC)

C4DISC was founded by ten trade and professional associations that represent organizations and individuals working in scholarly communications. The Coalition was formed to discuss and address issues of diversity and inclusion within the scholarly communication space.

Resources and Other Opportunities

C4DISC offers professional development and learning opportunities through free webinars. Additionally, they have produced three Toolkits for Equity, which provide a common framework for analysis, a shared vocabulary, and best practices to address racial disparities specific to scholarly publishing. Numerous other resources geared toward educating practitioners on diversity and providing them with tools and strategies to combat racism and other inequities are available from their website under the “Resources” tab.

Library Publishing Coalition (LPC)

LPC works to extend the impact and sustainability of library publishing and open scholarship by providing a professional forum for developing best practices and shared expertise. LPC members comprise a robust network of libraries and library consortia committed to enhancing, promoting, and exploring the growing field of library publishing.

Resources and Other Opportunities

LPC offers resources and learning opportunities for anyone interested in learning more about or engaging further in library publishing. The Library Publishing Directory is an annual snapshot of the publishing activities of libraries. LPC, in partnership with the Educopia Institute, has produced and made freely available sets of teaching materials known as the “Library Publishing Curriculum.” The four modules cover Content, Impact, Sustainability, and Policy and are available for implementation and adaptation by any organization wishing to explore these publishing topics further as part of professional development or other education programs. Other resources, some of which are members-only, are available on the LPC Resources page.

LPC also hosts an annual forum that brings together libraries and others engaged in publishing initiatives to explore themes, address issues, and identify collaborative opportunities within the library publishing space. This year’s forum will once again be virtual, and registration is now open for a nominal fee.

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

SPARC works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials. SPARC focuses on collaborating with other stakeholders — including authors, publishers, libraries, students, funders, policymakers, and the public — to build on the opportunities created by the Internet, promoting changes to both infrastructure and culture needed to make open the default for research and education.

Resources and Other Opportunities

SPARC hosts several freely available resources that assist libraries in navigating the space of open access, including guides to big deal licensing, open journal publishing, and open education policy. Additionally, SPARC offers opportunities for professionals to engage more deeply in these topics. One highly visible and important engagement program is the Open Education Leadership Program, which offers an annual cohort of participants the opportunity to build knowledge and skills in open education and develop initiatives to benefit students.

UKSG

UKSG is an international entity that connects the organizations that are involved in scholarly communication and supports the discussion and progression of issues in the field.

Resources and Other Opportunities

UKSG’s open access publication Insights regularly publishes important articles on scholarly communication and scholarly publishing topics. Additionally, UKSG offers free webinars representing global perspectives on scholarly communication, scholarly publishing, and e-resource management issues.

Other Organizations

Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI)

COAPI, which is hosted by SPARC, brings together North American institutions that have established or are working to implement open access policies.

Resources and Other Opportunities

For those institutions interested in advocating for or implementing a new open access policy, the COAPI Toolkit offers templates, talking points, and other resources to assist in this work.

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

IFLA is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. The organization offers numerous divisions, sections, and special interest groups dedicated to the various areas of librarianship, including scholarly communication and library publishing.

Resources and Other Opportunities

IFLA hosts its own institutional repository where white papers, reports, policies, and other documentation produced by IFLA’s various groups are hosted. IFLA webinars and other events are published on its Calendar of Events.

Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA)

OASPA is a membership organization that represents the interests of open access globally in all scientific, technical, and scholarly disciplines. This mission is carried out through exchanging information, setting standards, advancing models, advocacy, education, and the promotion of innovation.

Resources and Other Opportunities

OASPA’s dedication to the production of quality open access scholarship is reflected in its Best Practices guide, which is essential reading and implementation by all engaged in open access publishing. They also curate other resources that are essential to open-access publishers. Finally, OASPA regularly hosts free webinars on topics pertaining to open access publishing.

Scholarly Communication Institute (SCI)

The SCI aims to bring together groups of scholars, information scientists, librarians, publishers, technologists, and others from both inside and outside academia to articulate and begin to address needs and opportunities in the domain of scholarly communication. The Institute annually brings together teams of individuals from diverse backgrounds to devote concentrated time to defining shared challenges, exploring creative strategies, and forging new collaborations, in a spirit of bold and open experimentation and focused on one or more of a set of annually changing themes.

Resources and Other Opportunities

Although the Institute has temporarily suspended its annual application process and in-person institute for selected teams, resources created by teams in years past are still available on the website.

Further Reading

• There are a number of tools, services, and systems working within scholarly communication. Last year, the Educopia Institute released a Bibliographic Scan of Digital Scholarly Communication Infrastructure that reviews all the major players in this space.
• The ACRL Scholarly Communication Toolkit provides its users with a basic understanding of scholarly communication issues in the context of their impact upon libraries. Visitors to the site will find various tools, presentations, handouts, and other takeaways that they can utilize as they develop their own local resources.
• From a more strategic viewpoint on organizations working on scholarly communication and scholarly publishing infrastructure, SPARC has put out both a Landscape Analysis of current trends in scholarly publishing infrastructure and a Roadmap for Action for scholar-led and community-driven approaches to developing infrastructure.

The SCOOP, Scholarly COmmunication and Open Publishing, is a monthly column published to inform Atla members of recent developments, new resources, or interesting stories from the realm of scholarly communication and open access publishing.