Scholarly Communication Commons^™

Supporting Bibliodiversity And Access Through Library Resource Sharing, J. Silvia Cho

Publications and Research

Librarians, with their core values of access, intellectual freedom, stewardship and democracy, share bibliodiversity advocates’ vision of an eco-social system of diverse cultures and reading as a democratic and emancipatory practice. Librarians bolster bibliodiversity by collecting inclusively, critically reviewing and decolonizing library collections, and centering access. Building on previous discussions on the role of open access in strengthening bibliodiversity, this paper acknowledges and articulates how interlibrary loan and library resource sharing also support bibliodiversity. Doing so is important to augment advocacy and support for these services. Advancing solutions to challenges in resource sharing means also advancing towards bibliodiversity goals, supporting …

Don't Panic! Cuny Academic Works And The April Ada Deadline, Jojo Karlin, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

These slides equip libraries to advise authors submitting to CUNY Academic Works about document accessibility. Topics will include: How is CUNY Academic Works changing in response to the new ADA rule about the accessibility of web content, which has a compliance deadline of April 24? What are authors being asked to do differently? What tools are available for them to check and improve the accessibility of their submissions? Who is responsible for making our institutional repository more accessible?

As the expectations for institutional repositories change, the presentation aims to help librarians understand what the changes are and what they mean …

Cuny Academic Works: What It Is And Why You Should Submit Your Works, Jojo Karlin

Publications and Research

CUNY Academic Works was launched in 2014 to serve the faculty, staff, and students of CUNY. The root of this open access institutional repository was a response to the Budapest Open Access Initiative of 2002, which led to a CUNY University Faculty Senate Resolution in 2011. These slides were used in a presentation given at Lehman College and were developed from a presentation given at La Guardia Community College.

Urgent Expertise, Explored Together: A Scholarly Communication Peer-Mentoring Group, Alex Crowley, Lily Susman, Rosemary Farrell, Michael Kahn, Caroline Jedlicka, Eric Silberberg, Michelle Ehrenpreis, Marta Bladek, Jill Cirasella

Urban Library Journal

In Spring 2025, the authors participated in a structured peer-mentoring program designed to deepen their knowledge of scholarly communication topics and issues. In this article, based on our panel at the 2025 LACUNY Institute, we share our perspectives on the program and discuss how current events are making scholarly communication expertise more essential than ever.

The Open Knowledge Fellowship: An Opportunity For Transformative Learning At The Doctoral Level, Elvis Bakaitis, Jill Cirasella, Patrick Mcgee

Publications and Research

How can we integrate the principles, practicalities, and complexities of open educational resources (OER) and open access scholarly literature into graduate-level education? At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), the popular and successful Open Knowledge Fellowship offers a much-needed intervention in doctoral education by addressing these topics and associated debates. Between 2020 and 2025, the intensive six-week Fellowship program was offered 12 times and trained over 200 doctoral students from across the disciplines in the selection and use of openly licensed resources in the courses they teach. These 200+ students then taught their revamped courses …

1 Repository, 26 Campuses, 10 Years: Strength (And Chaos) In Numbers, Jojo Karlin, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

In the ten years since its inception, the CUNY Academic Works repository has grown to house and provide public access to more than 33,000 scholarly, pedagogical, and creative works by affiliates of the City University of New York, the largest urban public university in the United States. Representing all 26 CUNY campuses — community colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate/professional schools, with legacies as old as 1847 (The City College of New York) and as young as 2018 (CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies) — CUNY Academic Works has flourished thanks in large part to a system that combines central …

Increasing Global South Knowledge Representation With Oa And Library Resource Sharing, J. Silvia Cho

Publications and Research

In this peer-review session, I present ideas to study and overcome barriers to digital interlibrary loan exchange with Latin America under Fair Use (and equivalent provisions). Materials published in Latin America and the Caribbean are more difficult to discover and access from the United States, creating silos and under-representation of points of view from these regions in Global North scholarship. Open Access is key towards overcoming barriers to access, but much of Southern knowledge continues to be in non-Open Access publications with traditional copyright. As a result, library resource sharing and interlibrary loan must facilitate a greater flow of Southern …

Common Challenges Faced By Early-Career Researchers In Latin American And Small U.S. Universities, Daniela Cejas, Fatima Rodriguez Acosta, Juan Rivera-Correa

Publications and Research

Early-career researchers from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries and small U.S. universities are underrepresented in international scientific databases. They have geographical importance, infectious disease endemicity, and exceptional researchers in microbiology, but these factors do not translate to representation in high-impact scientific publications. Many reasons could be involved, including financial burdens such as the inability to pay article processing charges. Additional teaching, institutional, and service responsibilities also highly influence their research productivity. Despite this, they are expected to publish high-impact articles, and their career development highly depends on it. There is an opportunity for global peer collaboration to tackle this inequity and …

Transform A Library Corner Into A Social Learning Space, Junli Diao

Open Educational Resources

This library project proposal outlines the essential steps to convert a library corner into a leisure reading space. The proposal includes opening narrative, justifications, work plan, outcome assessment, and budget estimation.

Cuny Academic Works: A Basic Guide For Authors, Jojo Karlin

Open Educational Resources

These basic slides provide steps to submit your work to CUNY Academic Works. These slides are intended for CUNY affiliates to demonstrate basic steps for uploading works.

Identifying Intangible And Biocultural Heritage Elements Toward Environmental Understanding: Engaging Stakeholders Through Art, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Grounded in a case study in Barbuda in the Caribbean, this research examines sustainability from the perspective of what arts and heritage can contribute to community engagement and local and broader understandings about the environment. This article documents a growing body of literature recognizing the role of arts and culture, including local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in climate change endeavors. Art and TEK present expansive world views. Contextual information situates research done on the island of Barbuda pre- and post-Hurricane Irma. Visual arts workshops engaged community members in mixed methods research. Results documented cultural elements, particularly intangible and …

Urgent Expertise, Explored Together: A Scholarly Communication Peer-Mentoring Group, Alex Crowley, Lily Susman, Rosemary Farrell, Michael Kahn, Carrie Jedlicka, Eric Silberberg, Michelle Ehrenpreis, Marta Bladek, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

In Spring 2025, the authors participated in a structured peer-mentoring program designed to deepen their knowledge of scholarly communication topics and issues. In this article, based on our panel at the 2025 LACUNY Institute, we share our perspectives on the program and discuss how current events are making scholarly communication expertise more essential than ever.

Gender And Peer Review, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Library Publishing In The Global South: Research In Progress, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Little is known about library publishing in the Global South which is varied in scale, format, and longevity. Library publishing is critical to the expansion of quality diamond open access that is robustly discoverable and properly preserved. The preliminary phase of a research project identified and analyzed Global South library publishers, and gathered data for publisher scale, geography, platform, format, and ethical best practices or other indications of external vetting.

Introduction, Predatory Publishing And Global Scholarly Communications (Chapter 1), Monica Berger

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Predatory Publishing And Global Scholarly Communications, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

redatory publishing is a complex problem that harms a broad array of stakeholders and concerns across the scholarly communications system. It shines a light on the inadequacies of scholarly assessment and related rewards systems, contributes to the marginalization of scholarship from less developed countries, and negatively impacts the acceptance of open access.   To fix what is broken in scholarly communications, academic librarians must act as both teachers and advocates and partner with other stakeholders who have the agency to change how scholarship is produced, assessed, and rewarded. Predatory Publishing and Global Scholarly Communications is a unique and comprehensive exploration of …

Oer About Open Access: A Brief Assessment, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

This report provides an overview of the Open Access collection curated for the Scholarly Communication Notebook (SCN) Hub on OER Commons, as well as an assessment of the existing body of open educational resources (OER) about open access (OA).

Making Publishing Less Painful: Shifting To A Relational Peer-Review Process, Sajni Lacey, Kristina Clement, Lalitha Nataraj, Nicole Pagowsky

Urban Library Journal

Navigating confusing peer-review structures in publishing can be daunting for librarians at all stages of their career. In this paper, the authors will differentiate peer-review models and reflect on their experiences with these formats in the context of the [redacted] special issue of [redacted]. Additional discussion will include the hidden curriculum of publishing; areas for growth in peer-review related to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and peer-review as an individual and collective form of professional development that shapes how we engage with scholarship in LIS.

Academic Librarians And Pedagogical Approaches To Deterring Predatory Publishing, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

This chapter discusses the perspectives and experiences of an academic librarian related to the challenging phenomenon of predatory publishing. Academic librarians have extensive scholarly communications knowledge and mitigate predatory publishing when they educate authors on journal and publisher selection as well as how to recognize and avoid predatory publishers. Unintentional predatory publishing is an outcome of deficits in scholarly information literacy—inadequate knowledge and critical thinking related to scholarship. This chapter traces scholarly information literacy from undergraduates to graduate students to its main focus, faculty; it also touches on other factors that underlie unintentional predatory publishing, for example, considerations of an …

What’S Missing? The Role Of Community Colleges In Building A More Inclusive Institutional Repository Landscape, Megan Wacha, Michael Kirby, Jean Amaral, Elizabeth Jardine, Meagan Lacy, Kate Lyons

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Fostering Epistemic Equality With Library-Based Publishing In The Global South, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

This talk will consider the marginalization of scholars and other stakeholders in the Global South and how local publishing infrastructure is critical to recalibrating imbalances. The Latin American ethos and practice of bibliodiversity, or scholarly self-determination, is a precondition for the decolonialization of knowledge. Accordingly, predatory publishing is minimal in Latin America which has its own publishing infrastructures. Library publishing, which supports bibliodiversity, represents an important path towards much needed free to authors or diamond open access. Librarians play a critical role in educating editors and fostering publishing best practices.

The Politics Of Open Access And The Decolonization Of Knowledge, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Bibliodiversity is a critical concept in mitigating epistemic injustice and coloniality. Scholarly communities must determine their own agendas in order to create diverse pathways for varied knowledge circuits across local, regional, and international boundaries. Virtue epistemology, epistemic injustice, epistemic coloniality, and scholarly communications share some common ground, albeit utilizing very different rhetoric and discourse. Epistemic injustice and coloniality, in particular, align with concerns related to scholarly communications. Subsequently, I will provide an overview of open access, addressing its history and how current conditions that have resulted in the domination of the author pays model and marginalization of Southern authors. The …

Fabrication And Errors In The Bibliographic Citations Generated By Chatgpt, William H. Walters, Esther Isabelle Wilder

Publications and Research

Although chatbots such as ChatGPT can facilitate cost-effective text generation and editing, factually incorrect responses (hallucinations) limit their utility. This study evaluates one particular type of hallucination: fabricated bibliographic citations that do not represent actual scholarly works. We used ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 to produce short literature reviews on 42 multidisciplinary topics, compiling data on the 636 bibliographic citations (references) found in the 84 papers. We then searched multiple databases and websites to determine the prevalence of fabricated citations, to identify errors in the citations to non-fabricated papers, and to evaluate adherence to APA citation format. Within this set of documents, …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Black Feminist Citational Praxis And Disciplinary Belonging, Bianca C. Williams

Publications and Research

What does a Black feminist citational practice look and feel like? This contribution to the #CiteBlackWomen colloquy focuses on two arguments: First, that Black feminist citational praxis is one of the major interventions Black women scholars contribute to the academy; and second, that anthropology’s neglect and erasure of Black feminist anthropologists relates to disciplinary (un)belonging. I explore how citation and “disciplinary belonging” influence hiring practices, doctoral training, intellectual genealogies, and what is valued as anthropological knowledge.

Public Knowledge, Emily Drabinski

Publications and Research

An editorial framing the author's perspective on book reviews as a form of scholarly communication.

Inclusivity In Children’S Services Within The School And Public Library, Phoebe Levin

Student Theses

The children's library has the potential to not only aid in knowledge-seeking conquests but to help establish a relationship of acceptance between the differences spewing from the child's own self, and the diversity of their peers. The increasing rate of underrepresented peoples in America, and the growing number of representative titles, have contributed to the trend of diversity and inclusivity in the library.

The efforts to make the library diverse and representative have been an ongoing struggle, yet in recent times efforts have proved that the exposure of diversity and inclusivity is beneficial to children. While examining how diversity and …

No Publication Favelas! Latin America's Vision For Open Access, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Open access was intended to be the great equalizer but its promise has not come to fruition in many lower-income countries of the Global South. Under-resourcing is only one of the many reasons why these scholars and publishers are marginalized. In order to examine inequality in our global scholarly communications system, we can compare a negative and a positive outgrowth of this imbalance. Predatory publishing represents a a weak imitation of traditional, commercial journal publishing. In contrast, Latin America’s community-based, quality scholarly infrastructure is anti-colonial. It can be argued that Latin America’s publishing infrastructure represents one solution to predatory publishing. …

On The Future Of Ijsl: Trans-Collaboration And How To Overcome The Structural Constraints On Knowledge Production, Distribution And Dissemination, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this essay, using as a point of departure his dilemma to accept or not the invitation to be a member of IJSL’s Editorial Board, del Valle discusses the limitations that academic publishing places on scholars in the humanities and interpretive social sciences: their choice of objects and analytical protocols, and the modes of distribution and dissemination of their production. The constraints imposed by highly bureaucratized universities and publishing companies are set against the intellectual imperative to build academic fields grounded in equality and inclusion. The essay concludes with some thinly drawn goals towards more dynamic trans-collaborative forms of knowledge …

Bibliodiversity At The Centre: Decolonizing Open Access, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

The promise of open access for the global South has not been fully met. Publishing is dominated by Northern publishers who disadvantage Southern authors through platform capitalism and open access models requiring article processing charges to publish. The South can reclaim and decolonize open access, nurturing scholarly communities, by employing bibliodiversity, a sustainable, anticolonial ethos and practice developed in Latin America. Self-determination and locality are at the core of bibliodiversity which rejects the domination of international, English-language journal publishing. As articulated by the Jussieu Call, varied scholarly community-based, non-profit, and sustainable models for open access are integral to bibliodiversity as …