[Oa-italia] Nuovo report ARL: Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication

Susanna Mornati mornati a cilea.it
Lun 10 Nov 2008 17:45:38 CET


Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:28:42 -0500
From: Peter Suber <peters a earlham.edu>
Subject: Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication: ARL 
Releases Final Report from Ithaka Study

Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication ARL Releases Final Report
from Ithaka Study Washington DC--The Association of Research Libraries
(ARL) has released the final report from a study that ARL commissioned
Ithaka to conduct, Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication, by
Nancy L. Maron and K. Kirby Smith, along with the database of exemplars
that the study produced.

In the spring of 2008, ARL engaged Ithaka's Strategic Services Group to
conduct an investigation into the range of online resources valued by
scholars, paying special attention to those projects that are pushing
beyond the boundaries of traditional formats and are considered innovative
by the faculty who use them. The networked digital environment has enabled
the creation of many new kinds of works, and many of these resources have
become essential tools for scholars conducting research, building scholarly
networks, and disseminating their ideas and work, but the decentralized
distribution of these new-model works has made it difficult to fully
appreciate their scope and number.

Ithaka's findings are based on a collection of resources identified by a
volunteer field team of over 300 librarians at 46 academic institutions in
the US and Canada. Field librarians talked with faculty members on their
campuses about the digital scholarly resources they find most useful and
reported the works they identified. The authors evaluated each resource
gathered by the field team and conducted interviews of project leaders of
11 representative resources. Ultimately, 206 unique digital resources
spanning eight formats were identified that met the study's criteria.

The study's innovative qualitative approach yielded a rich cross-section of
today's state of the art in digital scholarly resources. The report
profiles each of the eight genres of resources, including discussion of how
and why the faculty members reported using the resources for their work,
how content is selected for the site, and what financial sustainability
strategies the resources are employing. Each section draws from the
in-depth interviews to provide illustrative anecdotes and representative
examples.

Highlights from the study's findings include:

* While some disciplines seem to lend themselves to certain formats of
digital resource more than others, examples of innovative resources can be
found across the humanities, social sciences, and
scientific/technical/medical subject areas.

* Of all the resources suggested by faculty, almost every one that
contained an original scholarly work operates under some form of peer
review or editorial oversight.

* Some of the resources with greatest impact are those that have been
around a long while.

* While some resources serve very large audiences, many digital
publications--capable of running on relatively small budgets--are tailored
to small, niche audiences.

* Innovations relating to multimedia content and Web 2.0 functionality
appear in some cases to blur the lines between resource types.

* Projects of all sizes--especially open-access sites and
publications--employ a range of support strategies in the search for
financial sustainability.

* The report is freely available on the ARL Web site at
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/current-models-report.pdf. Search the database at
http://www.arl.org/sc/models/model-pubs/search-form.shtml.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 on the Web at
http://www.arl.org/.

Ithaka is an independent not-for-profit organization whose mission is to
accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit
of higher education worldwide. The group promotes innovation in higher
education by supporting entrepreneurial not-for-profit initiatives to
develop financially sustainable organizational and business models. Ithaka
aims to combine a commitment to the core values of higher education, a deep
understanding of technology and its impact, and experience developing
economically sustainable not-for-profit business models, to help advance
community-wide benefits during this time of technological transition.
Ithaka is on the Web at http://www.ithaka.org/.

For more information, contact:
Karla Hahn
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
karla a arl.org

Nancy L. Maron
Ithaka
212-500-2349
nancy.maron a ithaka.org



Susanna Mornati, CILEA
Project Leader AEPIC, www.aepic.it
+39 02 2699 5322, +39 348 7090 226,
mailto:mornati a cilea.it, skype: susanna.mornati

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