PALCI and Authors Alliance Announce Consortium-Wide Partnership to Strengthen Scholarly Communication and Information Policy

Here’s the Full Text of Today’s Announcement (via PALCI):

The partnership was made possible through financial commitments from PALCI and 26 of its member libraries, including four Leadership Circle contributors who chose to make a deeper investment in both the partnership and the broader PALCI community. Their combined support advances a new consortium-based model for engaging national policy expertise, ensuring shared benefits for all PALCI members, while enabling institutions with expanded involvement to help shape and lead this work.The Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI) and Authors Alliance today announced a new consortium-wide partnership launching in 2026. This collaboration is Authors Alliance’s first partnership at consortium scale, creating a shared framework for supporting academic libraries and their authors as they navigate rapid change in scholarly communication, copyright, and information policy.

Together, PALCI and Authors Alliance will work to strengthen institutional capacity and build a sustainable community of practice around publishing, copyright, and information policy. PALCI member institutions will gain ongoing access to expert consultation, timely analysis of legal and policy developments affecting higher education, shared learning opportunities on emerging issues such as artificial intelligence and open licensing, and coordinated collaboration on law and policy priorities that affect research libraries at scale.

“Libraries and universities are confronting fundamental shifts in how scholarship is created, shared, and governed,” said Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI. “This partnership allows us to respond collaboratively, bring trusted policy expertise into a consortium context, and ensure that our members can engage these challenges together rather than in isolation.”

Partnering with PALCI enables Authors Alliance to work more deeply with libraries as institutional leaders in scholarly communication, while scaling its engagement to the shared priorities of a diverse academic consortium. “Academic authors and libraries are operating in an increasingly complex legal and policy environment,” said Dave Hansen, Executive Director of Authors Alliance. “This partnership with PALCI allows us to collaborate at scale, support collective learning across institutions, and work alongside libraries and the authors they serve as they shape the future of scholarly communication. We believe this partnership will become the model for future collaborative efforts.”

PALCI institutions that elected to participate at the partnership’s Leadership Circle level, including Allegheny College, Lehigh University, New York University, and the University of Pittsburgh, will play a distinctive role in shaping the partnership’s early direction. This level of participation reflects an institutional commitment to sustained engagement with scholarly communication and information policy, and to supporting a collaborative model that balances shared access with leadership-driven innovation across the consortium.

Boaz Nadav Manes, Library Director at Lehigh University, emphasized the strategic importance of investing in the partnership:

“Scholarly communication and information policy are now central to the academic mission of research libraries. By contributing at the Leadership Circle level, Lehigh University is gaining customized, expert support for our community while also investing in shared capacity across PALCI.  This partnership enables libraries to act collectively, share responsibility, and engage proactively with the policy challenges that will define academic authorship in the years ahead.”

As part of the partnership launch, PALCI and Authors Alliance will support the creation of a new consortium-wide discussion forum and community of practice dedicated to scholarly communication, information policy, copyright, and library publishing. This space will serve as a central hub for engagement, shared learning, and direct interaction with Authors Alliance staff.

Through this partnership, PALCI and Authors Alliance reaffirm their shared commitment to advancing knowledge, supporting authors, and strengthening the policy foundations of scholarly communication in service of the public good.

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Publishing