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ACRL Appointments Committee: Committee Volunteer Information: Research and Scholarly Environment Committee

Those interested in volunteering for an ACRL Division-Level Committee will find all the information they need to research committee options, including the work of each committee and the time commitments expected for volunteers.

What is the name of the ACRL committee on which you are reporting?

Research and Scholarly Environment Committee

What is the main work of your committee?

Our committee provides information to ACRL members about research and scholarship trends, including Open Access, publishing, and copyright. We inform ACRL members about what's happening with vendors and in library world with regards to open access in general. We also discuss how to support academic librarians trying to provide information to the faculty at their institution about this area.  We advance this work through the following projects and initiatives:

  1. C&RL News Scholarly Communications column
  2. Request For Information - Policy Response
  3. Scholarly Communication Toolkit
  4. Scholarly Communications Discussion Group, ALA Connect community, and ACRL-SPARC Forum
  5. Roadshows

What are the busy times of year for your committee?

Typically January and June.

On average, what time commitment does being a member of your committee require?

0-2 hours a month depending on what subcommittee they participate on.

What skills or expertise would be valuable in a member of your committee?

The committee is interested in members who are involved with, pay attention to, or are interested in research, scholarly communication, copyright, open access, scholarly publishing, SPARC, etc.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of the committee’s work, from your perspective?

It would be working with like-minded people interested in the same things around scholarly communication- open data, OER, open publishing, research impact, etc.

Is there anything else someone thinking of volunteering for your committee should know?

Members are encouraged to participate at whatever level they are able to, including leading one of the sub-committees. It may be helpful to know that participating in meetings via phone had been an option pre-pandemic and is expected to remain an option post-pandemic, as well.