The Information Literacy Gap in Scholarly Communication

Introduction Academic libraries are invested in scholarly communication. For example, academic libraries host many open access scholarly journals, as well as events like Open Access Week. In addition, organizations like the Library Publishing Coalition demonstrate the dedication of academic libraries to advancing their role in academic publishing. Several American Library Association divisions have released position statements in support of open access. In spite of the involvement of academic libraries in the Open Access movement, many university faculty have rather conservative attitudes towards scholarly communication.1 This paper attempts to identify the knowledge that forms these faculty attitudes by answering the research question, “What do faculty know and believe about scholarly communication and open access?” Faculty are a key stakeholder group for academic libraries and it is important to understand their attitudes and beliefs, especially since open access research is of strategic importance to research libraries and an increasingly important component in the ethos of librarianship. Faculty have influence over undergraduate and graduate students and the ideas that they propagate are likely to persist in academic culture as they train the future professorate. Ultimately, this paper will demonstrate some of the ways faculty think and talk about scholarly communication and open access, and suggest how information literacy programs can more effectively engage with faculty around scholarly communication issues. Based on these findings, this paper will make recommendations on how to tailor scholarly communication programs to address the needs of faculty.