OER + ScholComm
This IMLS-supported (LG-72-17-0132-17; LG-36-19-0021-19) collaboration among librarians at North Carolina State University Libraries, University of Kansas Libraries, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information Sciences explored approaches to – and has developed – a corpus of open educational resources (OER) for teaching library students and professionals about scholarly communication work in libraries. Our project is born in the recognition that even as scholarly communication is ascendant as a core academic librarian competency there is little formal instruction in scholcomm topics and no unified teaching/learning resource that might spur an increase in relevant instruction. As librarians with a variety of experience within scholarly communication sub-fields, we hope to engage stakeholders in the creation and maintenance of a living body of openly-licensed content to support the growth of scholcomm and related positions, as well as diffuse scholcomm praxis and values across LIS curricula according to its myriad intersections with other aspects of librarianship.
In early June 2022, our friends at SPARC published a nice overview on their News site: OER Resources to Help Equip Growing Field of ScholComm Librarianship.
Team
Josh Bolick
Josh Bolick (0000-0002-7379-0432) is head of the Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright at the University of Kansas where he supports a broad range of scholarly communication activities across the university. Until recently, he led KU Libraries’ open education initiatives, which saw explosive growth under his direction. His scholarship includes advocacy for open access in wildlife management literature, a novel way to support author’s rights via a loophole in Elsevier’s author sharing policy that undermines repository embargoes, and the multiyear, multifaceted, multi-stakeholder collaboration to expand teaching and learning about scholarly communication topics that is the focus of this site. He has been a presenter for the Open Education Network, an OER Research Fellow (17/18), and a 2018 Against the Grain Media Up & Comer. Twitter: @joshbolick
Maria Bonn
Maria Bonn is the MS/LIS Program Director and Associate Professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She teaches courses on academic librarianship and the role of libraries in scholarly communication and publishing. Her research focuses on understanding the needs of scholars in a contemporary publishing environment and on the experience of collaboration in the humanities. Prior to her faculty appointment, Bonn served as the associate university librarian for publishing at the University of Michigan Library, with responsibility for publishing and scholarly communications initiatives, including Michigan Publishing. Bonn has also been an assistant professor of English at institutions both in the United States and abroad. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester, master’s and doctoral degrees in American literature from the University At Buffalo, and a master’s in information and library science from the University of Michigan. Twitter: @msbonn
Will Cross
Will Cross is the Director of the Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center in the NC State University Libraries, an instructor in the UNC SILS, and an OER Research Fellow. Trained as a lawyer and librarian, he guides policy, speaks, and writes on open culture and navigating legal uncertainty.
As a course designer and presenter for ACRL, SPARC, and the Open Education Network, Will has developed training materials and run workshops across the US and for international audiences from Ontario to Abu Dhabi. Will’s current research focuses on the relationship between copyright and open education. In addition to this project he serves as co-PI and co-developer of the IMLS-funded Library Copyright Institute and is part of a team developing a set of Best Practices for Fair Use in Open Educational Resources. In 2020, he was recognized as a Library Journal Mover and Shaker. Twitter: @tceles_B_hsup
Jenna Strawbridge
Jenna Strawbridge worked on the SCN project as Graduate Research Assistant. Before joining the world of library and information science, Jenna worked in museum collections after obtaining BA and MS degrees in anthropology. Jenna’s interests within the field of library and information science include information organization, metadata and resource description, and information literacy.
SCN Curators
Sara Benson (Copyright Collection)
Sara is the copyright librarian and an assistant professor at the Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a JD from the University of Houston Law Center, an LLM from Boalt Hall School of Law at Berkeley, and an MSLIS from the School of Information Science at the University of Illinois. Prior to joining the library, Sara was a lecturer at the University of Illinois College of Law for ten years. Sara is the host of the ©hat (“Copyright Chat”) podcast, available on iTunes. Sara is the editor of the ACRL book titled “Copyright Conversations: Rights Literacy in a Digital World” and the author of the ALA Editions book titled “Compact Copyright: Quick Answers to Common Questions.” Twitter: @SaraCopyLib
Regina Gong (Open Education Collection)
Regina is the OER & Student Success Librarian at Michigan State University. Regina is actively involved in the open education community and has done numerous national presentations, webinars, and workshops on open education, and Women of Color in OER (#WoCinOER). Regina serves on the Open Education Conference Steering Committee, SPARC Open Education Advisory Group, and as faculty for the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) Institute for Open Educational Resources. Previously, she was a member of the SPARC Steering Committee and the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER), where she served as VP for professional development. Regina also provides leadership to the Michigan OER Network (MI-OER). She is also a recipient of the Open Education Group OER Research Fellowship and a Global OER-Graduate Network (GO-GN) member. Regina obtained her Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at Wayne State University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at MSU. Twitter: @drgong.
Jill Cirasella (Open Access Collection)
Jill is the Associate Librarian for Scholarly Communication at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She leads the Mina Rees Library’s scholarly communication initiatives, promotes open scholarship across campus, and contributes to university-wide scholarly communication efforts. Her priorities include enabling public access to GC-authored scholarship and providing instruction about open access, copyright, fair use, publication contracts, research metrics, and more. Jill’s research focus is scholarly communication, very broadly construed: recent and current projects include anxieties surrounding open access, attitudes about practice-based library literature, and the lived experiences of hard of hearing librarians. She is committed to advancing ethical, community-led open access initiatives and currently serves as Chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. Twitter: @jillasella
AJ Boston (Scholarly Sharing Collection)
AJ (0000-0001-8590-4663) is the Scholarly Communication Librarian at Murray State University and MSU Office of Research and Creative Activity Coordinator. His writings and presentations incorporate popular culture to make scholarly communication more accessible. Boston is an outgoing Library Publishing Coalition Fellow and incoming SPARC COAPI Steering Committee Member and KYVL Affordable Learning Steering Committee Member. Twitter: @aj_boston
Rachel Miles (Research Impact Collection)
Rachel Miles is the Research Impact Librarian at Virginia Tech, where she supports researchers in improving and assessing the impact of their research through education of Open Access (OA) and author rights; provides specialized support for citation analysis, bibliometrics, altmetrics, network visualization, and emerging applications of impact data at individual, department, institutional, and other group levels; and supports best practices in developing and maintaining research profiles. Her research primarily focuses on the awareness and usage of research impact indicators, such as bibliometrics and altmetrics, among Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty and academic librarians at R1 institutions. Twitter: @metric_guru
Hoa Luong (Open Data Collection)
Hoa Luong is an Associate Director at the Research Data Service, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the point person for the Illinois Data Bank, known as the institutional data repository, to help Illinois researchers share their research data. Hoa leads and works with subject liaisons at the Library to curate datasets in the Illinois Data Bank and provides data management plan (DMP) review, as well as coordinates workshops and educational outreach. Hoa received a B.S. in Food Sciences and M.S. in Library and Information Science, both from the University of Illinois.