This document discusses takeaways from a conference on scholarly communication models. It notes that libraries need to support the full research lifecycle beyond just publications and provide relevant digital services. Publishers should reflect on the evolving forms communication can take and help authors increase visibility and impact of their work. Both libraries and publishers are encouraged to think about how to bring more of the academic community along in embracing new models and ensure certain disciplines and content types are not left behind. Concerns remain around balancing openness with privacy and aligning investments with a changing landscape.

1. “SO NOW WHAT? SOME
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON
TAKEAWAYS AND THEMES”
C H A R L E S W A T K I N S O N
A U L , P U B L I S H I N G , U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N L I B R A R Y
D I R E C T O R , U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N P R E S S
W A T K I N C @ U M I C H . E D U
NISO Virtual Conference
Scholarly Communication Models:
Evolution or Revolution?

2. What kind of “listening” was I bringing?

3. What kind of “listening” was I bringing?
 As a publisher, I am struck by how even our humanities book authors
are now digital scholars with publishing needs that go far beyond the
codex.
 As a librarian, I recognize that libraries need to move from being
stewards of commoditized collections to providers of relevant services.
When scholars approach us, they increasingly have their “author”
rather than “user” hats on.
 While recognizing these converging roles I am still finding it
challenging to work out how to react in practice.
 What service offerings do we need to prioritize and how will those
impact how we should allocate our resources (budget, people, spaces)?
 I attended today’s NISO event to better understand the landscape but
also in the quest for some pointers . . .

4. The Landscape
 A moment of evaluation around Open Access. What will be future drivers?
 Influential people and organizations propagating cultural change, e.g., adoption of preprint
servers (Bourne), coalition of research funders and institutions (Bjørnshauge).
 Application of tools that allow scholars to leverage the corpus of Open Access content
allowing user-centric creation, consumption, annotation, and enhancement.
 Mechanisms for identifying and rewarding contributions across the research life cycle and in
varying forms, e.g., software, well-formed data.
 An increasing amount of “noise” in the scholarly communication system
 50 million articles, 2 million more a year, lots of other communication channels.
 Over 10,000 Open Access journals on DOAJ. 817 library-published journals.
 How can authors and readers cut through this “overabundance of information” (Gordon) or
“data exhaust” (Michalek)?
 Some exciting tools are emerging
 Hypothes.is is dramatically expanding what can be annotated.
 Kudos is helping authors drive and measure recognition of their work.
 Tools like CiteReader on SSRN help generate a picture of relationships.
 Plum Analytics to tell richer stories of impact

5. Messages for Libraries
 Think about ways to expose research outputs across the life cycle
 “The future role of libraries could be to sustain and capture the complete life cycle on behalf
of their institutions” Phil Bourne.
 Help scholars to expose their data and software, not just articles
 Make them findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable (FAIR).
 Help authors get more visibility for their work
 Via a Kudos institutional subscription, by providing data to SHARE (or helping develop the
system), by connecting one’s IR to disciplinary repositories like SSRN.
 Perhaps encourage institution to adopt Open Access policies with teeth
 At University of Liège a publication that is not available through the local repository will not
count in promotion and tenure.
 Find ways to help faculty overcome implementation barriers
 Overcome the “I hate open access, it is too complicated” syndrome.
 Adopt a publishing “lens” on the various services we provide

6. Messages for Publishers
 Really reflect on what form of communication moves research forward
 Hint: It’s not always the article. It could be a video, some software.
 Help authors wrestle with expectations of impact outside the Academy
 What “publics” really matter to the author, and how can we distinguish them in usage
metrics.
 Facilitate annotation as a layer over the article
 “Continuous ambient search” improves review, copyediting, post-pub discussion, e.g.,
hypothes.is
 Keep an open mind to opportunities to partner with new entrants
 Repositories as publishers, libraries as publishers, self-forming communities as publishers.

7. Some Areas of Concern
 The problem with the Google self-driving car is not the car but the
people. Are we bringing the majority of researchers along with us?
 How do we balance “academic freedom” with “academic responsibility”?
 With an increasing range of tools, how do we choose who to partner
with? Which services to spend our money on?
 How do we align library acquisitions budgets with a system in which tools may be more
valuable than content? How do we compare apples to apples?
 Are there types of publishing and disciplines that are being left behind?
 A lot of books are still not digitally available, let alone open access. And the ISBN is still not
an identifier that seems to play nicely in the digital space.
 How do we still give scholars some privacy when they need it?
 Is it always good to make the “invisible visible”?