This book has an excellent collection of articles on scholarly communication in two broad parts viz changing researcher behaviour (eight chapters); and other players: roles and responsibilities (five chapters). This is the right book at the right time that has come with excellent articles related to scholarly communications by different methods by the scholars, researchers, authors, producers, publishers and others. It also discussed the shared method of communication among chemistry researchers by using software tools like Mendeley. The data has been shared as DRM enabled content through repositories and social networking. For supporting qualitative research, Mass Observation Archive of University of Sussex has been discussed with phase wise with a detailed questionnaire. It is found that users are changing to online resources and digital materials for easy access and exchange of communication. The importance of information professionals has been emphasised as they make available (by access) the information for the researchers and by organising conferences.
The history of scholarly communication has been given with the developments. Researchers are interested to publish their output in impact factor journals that supports indirectly for scholarship. The e-access, data mining concepts and the author pays model (Gold Open access) are emphasised with the importance of interdisciplinary and international research with the benefit of Big deals.
As per the technological advancements, it has explained the creative way of communicating the scholarly research to others and by using web 2.0 tools mainly in STEM subjects. It explained the cyber taxonomy, wherein the use of ICT for collaboration of databases with online editing facility. Biodiversity Heritage Library project, with software like DELTA has been discussed. There is a discussion on/for interoperability and the support extended by European commission for scientific publications.
Other projects like ELIXIR (for biological information), CLARIN (language resources and technology) and LifeWatch Project (for ICT in biodiversity and ecosystems) are described for promoting collaboration in the research activity. A chapter on social media covers many aspects, with the tools like Twitter, Facebook and Blogs that are used by senior colleagues are well discussed in comparison with young researchers (less used) that facilitates for scholarly communication for information management within projects, scholarly publication and wider scholarly communication.
A chapter on role of publisher in the scholarly communication process as input, processing and output is discussed. Authors create manuscripts and convey them to publishers. Publishers also use Twitter and other social media for reviewing and discussed the open access publishing and the process of digital publishing. The output process is explained as the distribution, product development and business models, with the methods of hosting and distribution.
A chapter on the role of journal editor is well written with the production of a journal through the collaboration of authors, reviewers and editors. Key drivers are the commercial publishers who drive to maximize their return and the other is the technology, which facilitates the scholarly communication. The main function of the reviewers is explained with the cost and the final transformation of it as an article. Even in the OA the articles are peer reviewed and hence maintaining the quality. It is concluded that editors' role will go away soon, as authors themselves will contact the publishers for publishing.
The view of the research funder chapter discusses the role of OA with Wellcome Trust role and policy required for OA. Some of the research councils of UK, OA in Europe, US with the benefits of OA and the cost and sustainability of OA journals are discussed. The role of eLife emphasises to develop editorial process that reduces revision cycles and accelerates the publication of new findings.
The chapter on changing institutional research strategy addresses the scholarly communication changes and the strategies affected for it. It emphasised the need for a research strategy and changes, it will cause for measuring the progress. How scholarly communication be represented in a research strategy is discussed to have repositories, OA and communication methods as a scholarly communication. It is concluded that scholarly communication and institutional research strategy can and should indeed sit comfortably together. Successful institutions and individuals will ensure that the two are mutually supportive.
The role of research library is discussed to extend, exploit and promote new forms of scholarly communication. In electronic environment, the librarians are becoming facilitators, brokers and guardians of information for stakeholders. The research libraries have an established role as providers and curators of the scholarly record and supporting the work being undertaken by the national level libraries like British Library, Royal library of Netherlands, CLOCKSS, PORTICO, LOCKSS, etc. the value of the research repository has been strongly identified with a university's strategies for the research under the part of research management systems. They also keen to link content from the OA journals into their discovery services. The libraries are contributing to their knowledge and professional experience in managing elements of the research environment, including repository management, metadata, training and advocacy, promotion and publication and digital preservation. Thus they play an active role in innovation in scholarly communications.
The final chapter on “The library users' view” identified the scholar's relationship with information services organisations and always has been discovery of information, access to collections and the range of services necessary both to enable their use and to enable original research. Many services and collections are available online now. Change in research methodology in a number of fields due to scholarly communication. Scientists have adopted many new methods, both as authors and as readers that are reshaping the landscape. Most of the literature reviews are conducted via online services. Even with the escalation of price, libraries are able to satisfy their stakeholders by connecting the freely available OA journals. There is a structural readjustment in the nature of the user relationship with information service providers, not only for scientists but perhaps for humanities researchers as well. This affords new opportunities for a variety of information service organisations and provides additional service points both for science and for humanities.
The book has an appeal with nice colour (soft bound), which is attractive. It is very much useful for authors, researchers and library professionals who are willing to publish scientific scholarly communication. This gives from scholarly communication history to the understanding of applications and tools used by web 2.0 for scholarly communication. It has a direct relevance to everyone who is interested to publish and to learn about scholarly communication. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is responsible for planning to communicate scientific information. It would definitely act as a medium to aware of scholarly communication including taxonomy and it acts as a tool for the different aspects of scholarly communication.
