The Content and Scholarly Communications Initiatives (CSCI) team is actively engaged in finding new models for content creation, dissemination, and discovery while maintaining current models and valued relationships with many mission-aligned content providers that have been built over the past two decades. These relationships continue to meet the ongoing needs of LYRASIS members. From this critical vantage point LYRASIS CSCI is in a unique position to be the bridge between publishers and libraries who are seeking common ground to advance the field of scholarly communications.

Current  CSCI strategies and tactics are bridging the gap and providing our member community with better service and new opportunities for sustainable advancement.

  • CSCI is  deepening relationships with university presses such as the University of Michigan and collaborating on efforts to establish a transparent business model that enhances library values for their ebook collection hosted with open source technology.
  • Continuing support for the increasingly broad spectrum of publishing opportunities that offer options that fit with diverse needs is a high priority because CSCI has discovered that not every bit of scholarly content fits well within traditional publications like books and journals. Models for creation, hosting, dissemination, and discovery need to be fine-tuned to fit content as library publishing programs emerge to provide new kinds of opportunities.
  • The LYRASIS Research 2020 initiatives are underway. The CSCI team is exploring the actual practice of members in key areas such as accessibility, open content, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Open Access summary reports and analyses help our broad community advance our collective understanding of the gaps and challenges in areas selected annually by Leader Circle members.
  • CSCI seeks out innovative approaches with the potential to have significant impact through:
    • Member collaboration
    • Mission-alignment among multiple partnering organizations
    • Relationships with related international groups/programs to represent the US
  • Infrastructure is key. CSCI engages in collaborative open infrastructure programs across LYRASIS. An example is  the CSCI program established two years ago–the ORCID US community–which provides outreach, training, support, and education required  to support the integration of unique researcher IDs across multiple campus systems, funders, publishers, and more. We are exploring other opportunities to serve our members in the scholarly infrastructure space for 2020.
  • Legacy content providers can be encouraged to evolve models to meet current institutional requirements. We are working with many vendors and publishers to find new ways to serve our community of members.
  • Open Access models showcase open scholarship to a global audience where all users could be “free riders” for some type of open content that they are not directly funding. All libraries need opportunities to engage in and understand the open content movement that are a good fit for their user communities. We are making connections to increase institutional support for Open Access programs that is critical for these communities to succeed..

Onward

We want to hear from you! To learn more or to discuss any aspect of CSCI ongoing strategy please contact Celeste Feather, Director LYRASIS Content and Scholarly Communications.