ARL/ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication Provides Free Online Resources

The ARL/ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication has engaged hundreds of librarians in developing campus outreach programs around scholarly communication issues. To continue supporting this community and other libraries planning outreach programs, ARL's newest study Scholarly Communication Education Initiatives, SPEC Kit 299, is now freely available online through the FAIR (Freely Accessible Institute Resources) Web site at http://www.arl.org/sc/institute/instres.shtml.

 

In addition to a PDF of the complete report, the Web site offers a PDF of the table of contents and executive summary, and a supplementary page listing the Web-based resources included in the SPEC Kit with active links.  The SPEC Kit can also be purchased in print form; visit http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/spec/ for information.

 

Written by alumni of the ARL/ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication, Kathleen A. Newman, Deborah D. Blecic, and Kimberly L. Armstrong, the study provides a survey of outreach activities among ARL member libraries and gathers examples of documentation from respondents in the form of proposals for education initiatives, scholarly communication and copyright Web pages, job descriptions, and education materials.

 

The FAIR Web site offers other valuable resources for those planning and conducting scholarly communication outreach programs on their campuses, such as two particularly popular tools created for the Institute for use under a Creative Commons Share Alike License. The posted "Environmental Scan Exercise" is used by participants in the three-day Institute events to assess their campus' climate, past outreach activities, and readiness for program development prior to their arrival at the meeting. Institute faculty member Lee Van Orsdel has created an "Opportunity Assessment Instrument" that provides a framework for collecting data on academic departments. In addition to using the instrument to learn about individual departments, some Institute alumni are using a customized version of this tool for a cross-campus survey.
 
While the FAIR Web site does not publish all of the resources used during the Institute's planning events, it provides a place for Institute faculty and alumni to share selected outreach tools that they develop.

 

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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is located on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.

 

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. http://www.acrl.org