Faculty members communicate scholarship through publishing research findings. Research, discovery, and writing “begins” the circle of scholarly communication, publishing defines its curve, and after publication, scholars return anew to research and writing, undertaking new work and reviewing new publications. Libraries collect and preserve those publications—past and present—to support scholarship. Scholarly communication reaches to the core of the academic community and affects all of its members—administrators, faculty, librarians, and students.

Scholarly communication is in peril, weakening the circle of scholarship and limiting important scholarship and publishing opportunities. Why should you care?

• Faculty members routinely give away copyright in their scholarship without realizing that such an assignment will restrict their use and sharing of their own scholarly work.
• Access to important journals has grown out of reach for many faculty and libraries, particularly in the areas of science, technology, and medicine.
• Consolidation in the publishing industry has fostered unsustainable price increases, lessening the ability of libraries to fully serve the resource needs of faculty.
• Publishers of scholarly books can no longer fund many important scholarly works, limiting publishing opportunities and promotion and tenure possibilities for young scholars.
• Promotion and tenure practices may not value the use of information technology to develop and produce important new scholarship and publishing opportunities in less traditional journals and less traditional modes of scholarly communication.

Many of these challenges have possible solutions. The purpose of this symposium is to begin addressing those solutions and to foster an environment for new and innovative approaches and outcomes to scholarly communication at the University of Louisville and beyond. U of L faculty members will address local perspectives on scholarly communication and leading authorities speaking on national and worldwide efforts to bring change to scholarly communication will include:

• James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University
• Kenneth D. Crews, Samuel R. Rosen II Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law– Indianapolis, Professor of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Associate Dean for Copyright Management, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
• Julia Blixrud, Assistant Director/Public Programs, SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition), founded by the ARL (Association of Research Libraries)