New Report From Ithaka: “Office of Scholarly Communication: Scope, Organizational Placement, and Planning in Ten Research Libraries”

The phrase “scholarly communication” appears often in the description of library roles and responsibilities, but the function is still new enough that it takes different forms in different institutions. There is no common understanding of where it fits into the library’s organizational structure. This landscape review of offices of scholarly communication grows out of research originally conducted by Ithaka S+R for the Harvard Library.
Dr. Sarah Thomas, Vice President for the Harvard Library, University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, asked Ithaka S+R to undertake a review of how peer institutions support the scholarly communication function in their libraries. Dr. Thomas wanted to understand the scope of activities, staff size, and budget of similar units in peer institutions.
The project was designed to gather basic information about these issues at some of the largest research-intensive university libraries. It finds categorical differences in the vision for the scholarly communications unit and its organizational placement, as well as associated differences in staffing and budget.

List of Libraries (in Addition to Harvard) Included in Study