What Can Faculty Do?

	Library Materials Budget Reduction
	Journal Cancellations
	FAQs
	The Crisis in Scholarly Communication
	What Can Faculty Do?
	SHERPA

 

There are several ways in which faculty and other concerned individuals can assist the Libraries in addressing this problem:

- Get involved with your Library. Help the subject specialist for your discipline to identify titles whose cancellation will do the least harm.

- Give extra consideration to where you publish your papers.

Look at the cost of the journal when you submit your papers for publication or are asked to serve on an editorial board. Consider what the publisher asks you to do with your copyright.

- Become involved in the issues.

Consider the impact of these increasing prices upon the communication of research in your field. Reduced access to information caused by irresponsible pricing ultimately harms faculty, researchers, and the disciplines in which they publish. See the article "To publish and perish", published in Policy Perspectives, publication of the Pew Higher Education Roundtable and the Knight Collaborative.

To learn more about ways faculty members can become involved see:

Create Change
Produced by the Association of Research Libraries, the Create Change site provides an excellent overview of the issues and describes actions faculty members can take to help resolve this crisis.

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
SPARC is devoted to encouraging competition in the scholarly communications market. SPARC is already publishing several journals which were developed to compete directly with more expensive commercial counterparts.

Public Library of Science
This group is working to place scientific research in the public domain; ensuring free, unrestricted access to the record of scientific research. Their goal is to garner the support of researchers, who agree to not publish in journals which have not agreed to make their contents freely available six months after the publication date.

SHERPA
A database that rates publishers on two important aspects of copyright: the author's ability to post open access preprints or postprints of their own papers. It also provides links to the copyright statements of each publisher. You may find it helpful in determining where you should publish.

 

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