University Publishing in a Digital Age

Librarians will find University Publishing in a Digital Age by Laura Brown, former president of Oxford University Press USA, and Ithaka, a nonprofit research and consulting organization focused on higher education and technology, an interesting read because the report discusses how universities, their presses and their libraries must renew their commitment to the communication and dissemination of knowledge.

Description of the Report. Scholars have a vast range of opportunities to distribute their work, from setting up web pages or blogs, to posting articles to working paper websites or institutional repositories, to including them in peer-reviewed journals or books. In American colleges and universities, access to the internet and World Wide Web is ubiquitous; consequently nearly all intellectual effort results in some form of “publishing”. Yet universities do not treat this function as an important, mission-centric endeavor. The result has been a scholarly publishing industry that many in the university community find to be increasingly out of step with the important values of the academy.

This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.