The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has announced the publication of a new white paper, 'Intersections of Scholarly Communication and Information Literacy: Creating Strategic Collaborations for a Changing Academic Environment,' written by a working group of leaders from many areas of the association.
This white paper explores and articulates three intersections between scholarly communication and information literacy. These include: economics of the distribution of scholarship (including access to scholarship, the changing nature of scholarly publishing, and the education of students to be knowledgeable content consumers and content creators); digital literacies (including teaching new technologies and rights issues, and the emergence of multiple types of non-textual content); and our changing roles (including the imperative to contribute to the building of new infrastructures for scholarship, and deep involvement with creative approaches to teaching).
After elaborating on each intersection, the paper provides strategies for librarians from different backgrounds to initiate collaborations within their own campus environments between information literacy and scholarly communication.
After articulating these intersections and exploring core responses, the paper recommends four objectives, with actions for each, which could be taken by ACRL, other academic library organizations, individual libraries and library leaders. The recommendations are: integrate pedagogy and scholarly communication into educational programmes for librarians to achieve the ideal of information fluency; develop new model information literacy curricula, incorporating evolutions in pedagogy and scholarly communication issues; explore options for organizational change; and promote advocacy.
This white paper is issued as both a downloadable PDF and an interactive online format. Readers are encouraged to add comments and reactions in order to help further the conversation. This white paper complements the recently published ACRL book Common Ground at the Nexus of Information Literacy and Scholarly Communication, edited by Stephanie Davis-Kahl and Merinda Kaye Hensley.
