The stakes and politics of research and scholarship are different depending on discipline, department, and institution, and as such, increasing awareness of scholarly communication is fraught with difficulty. Librarians Jennifer Bazeley and Jen Waller share their experience developing a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) in order to address the issues. Cultivating awareness of the entire scholarly communication landscape created stronger faculty advocates for change, but key differences emerged between longer established and newer faculty members.
Librarians at Miami University Libraries have been following the changes in the world of scholarly publishing for many years. A few of us, in particular, have been active advocates for open access and for authors’ rights. Over the years we have tried a number of different strategies to increase awareness among faculty members at our institution about the issues inherent in the changing landscape of scholarly communication. Several years ago we began our work with an early attempt to present an open access resolution to academic deans at the university. The ensuing discussion created so much controversy that we had to abandon it. Subsequent activities largely went unnoticed by faculty, including the creation of an online guide addressing open access issues for faculty and librarians, a copyright workshop for faculty, and a library-wide celebration of Open Access Week.
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