A New World Of Scholarly Communication

A New World of Scholarly Communication November 2003 Higher-education leaders invariably have long lists of difficult issues to confront. These days, high on my list is the future of our university libraries. Although libraries form the basic infra- structure of the academic endeavor, I have come face to face with an unhappy fact: University librarians are now being forced to work with faculty members to choose more of the publications they can do without. The ballooning costs of academic publi- cations are preventing faculty members and researchers from gaining access to the world’s scholarship and knowledge. Even in the best of economic times, university libraries cannot hope to keep pace with the 6 to 12 percent annual inflation rate in the price of scholarly journals. And the fiscal environment today is particularly difficult—states are facing unprecedented budget crises just as expanding faculties and student bodies are increasing the demand for scholarly information. Neither