The future of scholarly communication: US efforts to bring warring factions to common purpose in support of scholarship

Abstract

Key stakeholders in scholarly communication have been at odds over the purpose, mission and business models of publishing. This piece reviews developments in the United States but with a particular focus on efforts at reestablishing common purpose, such as (1) the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable created in June 2009 by the Chairman of Science and Technology Committee of the US House of Representatives; (2) the Task force of the Association of American Universities and Association of Research Libraries established in 2012 to focus on university presses, scholarly journals and institutional repositories; and (3) the Office of Science and Technology Policy Memorandum of February 22, 2013 on Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.