Colin Steele

The publishing imperative : the pervasive influence of publication metrics

This article summarizes the effects of the increasing global trend towards measuring research quality and effectiveness through, in particular, publication‐based metrics, and its effects on scholarly communication. Such metrics are increasingly influencing the behaviour patterns of administrators, publishers, librarians, and researchers. Impact and citation measures, which often rely solely on Thomson Scientific data, are examined in the context of university league tables and research assessment exercises. The need to establish alternate metrics, particularly for the social sciences and humanities, is emphasized, as is an holistic approach to scholarly communication agenda.

Research practices and scholarly communication in the digital environment

This paper examines changing research practices in the digital environment. A review of the literature and our own field research in Australia suggest that there is a new mode of knowledge production emerging, changing research practices and bringing new information access and dissemination needs. Adjustments will be required to accommodate these changes, but new opportunities are emerging for more cost‐effective and sustainable information access and dissemination. It will be necessary, however, to take an holistic approach and treat the creation, production and distribution of scholarly information, the management of information rights and access, systems of review and evaluation and the underlying infrastructure as parts of a single research information and scholarly communication system.

Phoenix rising: new models for the research monograph?

There is significant evidence that traditional university presses are continuing to face financial crises. Outlets for research monographs are drying up, print runs are being reduced and monograph costs are increasing. The combination of the digital networked environment and openarchive initiatives may, however, provide the opportunity, through institutional repositories, to rethink the role and nature of the distribution of research monographs in a university setting. The adoption of new models, untrammelled by the structures of the past, while still retaining editorial and refereeing standards, could revolutionize the access and distribution patterns of research knowledge within university frameworks. Ultimate success will depend, however, on programmes of scholarly advocacy in scholarly communication with the academic author as both creator and as consumer.

No easy rider? The scholar and the future of the research library, by Fremont Rider: a review article

Fremont Rider’s 1944 book, The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library , had a major impact on research library thinking. The issues raised by Rider, such as research library economics, collection, acquisition and management policies, and library cooperation still resonate today, although his technology solutions have long since been outdated. Rider’s thoughts and predictions on research library growth influenced, rightly or wrongly, generations of administrators and librarians, particularly in the United States. The article outlines Rider’s thesis and traces trends in research libraries from the 1930s to the present day when libraries will have to become much more proactive in their institutional roles to tackle the new paradigms for the creation, distribution and access of information. We return to the question of what is the future of the research library and its economics in the digital era - no easy Rider?

Open access in Australia: an oddyssey of sorts?

Scholarly communication change and open access (OA) initiatives in Australia have followed an Odyssean path in the last decade. The stop-start nature of early initiatives demonstrates that institutional leadership is essential for the successful deposit of academic content in an institutional repository. Similarly, OA policies from the two Australian Research Councils were delayed for nearly a decade, partly due to publisher pressure and bureaucratic conservatism. More successful has been the development of full, or hybrid, open access university e-presses. These presses, usually embedded in the scholarly infrastructure of the university, provide monographic models for wider global consideration. Australian universities are now reflecting, partly through recent Research Council edicts and monitoring global OA developments, greater awareness of the need for action in scholarly communication change.

Blanket Orders and the Bibliographer in the Large Research Library

Analyses the mainly American practices of blanket orders and bibliographers, and considers their implications for the larger English libraries. The paper indicates that research libraries are tending to become more influenced by the area approach to acquisition than the subject approach. Much will depend, however, on the Governments detailed reaction to the Dainton Committee Report for any project comparable to the American National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloguing.

Digital publishing and the knowledge process

The digital information environment has ensured that the twenty first century will be a global watershed, like that of the fifteenth century in the Western world, for changes in the creation, distribution and access of knowledge and information.. Changes however are not being reflected in the formal frameworks of scholarly publishing. In the digital information environment, the challenges will be significant ranging from information overload to a multimedia non-linear access to information. Developments in the public and private web reflect the tensions of initiatives and consequent challenges, such as currently being experienced between the increasing aggregation of multinational publishers on the one hand and Open Access Initiatives on the other. Globally ‘publish or perish’ pressures have increased on researchers with the need for publication becoming the pathway to success in research assessment exercises, leading to tenure and promotion. The book and the article are no longer intrinsically a means of distributing knowledge. Depending on one’s viewpoint of the “Faustian bargain” between authors and publishers, the scholarly publishing environment has been in crisis for a number of years. While this has been particularly reflected in the debates on serials, many humanities scholars have experienced declining sales of their monographs and a lack of appropriate outlets for their research publications. While many traditional university presses have been closing down or losing money for a number of years, new models are emerging with different philosophies and capitalizing on new electronic settings. User studies have indicated that Print on Demand (POD) is universally seen as an essential requirement of output. in those contexts Open Archives Initiatives have seen the creation of a number of E-Print repositories which in turn have organically led to the establishment of E-Presses. Future scholarly publishing patterns will be much influenced by author attitudes at the creation level. Major programs of scholarly advocacy in the context of scholarly communication processes will, however, need to be implemented if scholarly authors, their institutions and their research output are to benefit from the new digital frameworks.

Booked to Die: Australia’s Information Future

The decline of Australia’s university libraries and information infrastructure is chronicled in terms of diminishing budgets amid the general crisis affecting Australian universities at all levels. The Australian budget in 2000 revealed yet again the lack of action shown by the Liberal Government in terms of addressing the knowledge issues for higher education against relatively weak responses from the opposition party, is noted. Considers the role that national and state libraries can play in redressing this imbalance, pointing to the example of Western Australia, which has announced the aim to ensure that all members of Western Australia are connected to the Internet in five years. Points specifically to the crisis in science periodicals, the issues raised by libraries against the periodicals publishers’ quest for ever greater profits at the expense of scholarly communication and some of the initiatives that are trying to ease matters. Records the decline in book purchasing in Australia’s university libraries, points to the need for national collection co-ordination, along the lines suggested by the Coalition for Innovation in Scholarly Communication (CISC) and a urges a rethink about the whole business of academic book publishing. It is concluded that the issues are long term and the way information is produced and distributed, especially by multinational conglomerates, will see dramatic change in the next few years. If the commercial market is allowed to rule totally over ‘public good’ issues then Australia’s future will be bleak.

The Higher Education Revolution in Australia – the Impact on Libraries

Significant changes have taken place in Australian higher education since 1987, reflecting a new unified national system for higher education. The changes have included amalgamations of higher education bodies; the dissolution of the binary system; the development of educational profiles for institutions; the expansion of national research centres; the introduction of fees; and a growth in student numbers in higher education. Libraries are expected to play a key role in the unified national system of higher education, albeit with no significant increase in funding likely to meet the new demands. A major review of higher education libraries, recently announced by the Australian Department of Employment, Education and Training, will have a big impact. The concept of a distributed national collection, which arose out of the Australian Libraries Summit of 1988, is being actively discussed, particularly in the light of recent developments in the National Library of Australias Collection Development Strategy.

Recent developments in scholarly communication: a review

This review article on recent developments in scholarly communication focuses on the content of three 2013 publications. Scholarly communication is defined by the Association of College and Research Libraries as ‘the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use’ (Association of College and Research Libraries 2003). The 14 essays in Deborah Shorley and Michael Jubb’s The future of scholarly communication cover the major issues affecting the complex ecology of research and scholarly communication. Several of Shorley and Jubb’s contributors remind us that the issues relate not only to text but also to other content fields, such as research data, evidenced in Henry Rzepa’s ‘Changing ways of sharing research in chemistry’, Vincent Smith’s ‘Cybertaxonomy’ and John Wood’s ‘Coping with the data deluge’. Jubb’s judicious introductory overview pulls together the different roles, perspectives and interests of the key stakeholders: researchers, universities, funders, libraries, publishers and learned societies. Jubb (2013) emphasises that: