Scholarly Communication Colloquium

NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: 9/11/09
CONTACT : LESLIE SCHALER, COMMUNICATION PROGRAM COORDINATOR, (413) 545-0162

UMASS AMHERST HOSTS
SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION COLLOQUIUM

"The University's Role in the Dissemination of Research & Scholarship: A Call to Action"

Amherst, MA - UMass Amherst will host the fourth annual Digital Quadrangle Colloquium, "The University's Role in the Dissemination of Research & Scholarship: A Call to Action," on September 24, 2009, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in Room 168C of the Campus Center. Faculty, staff, and graduate students are invited to attend. The event is also open to the public. A continental breakfast will be served.

The colloquium will explore the implications of the digitization of scholarly materials on the university. A panel presentation will include Stuart Shieber (James O. Welch, Jr. and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University) and Ann Wolpert (Director of Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). UMass Amherst Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs James V. Staros and selected faculty members will provide a campus response to their recommendations.

Stuart Shieber is director of Harvard University's Office for Scholarly Communication and its Center for Research on Computation and Society. On February 12, 2008, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted unanimously to adopt a policy to mandate open access to its faculty members' research publications. Dr. Shieber was the driving force behind the adoption of this policy.

As Director of Libraries, Ann J. Wolpert oversees MIT's library system and MIT Press. She also has oversight of Technology Review, MIT's magazine of innovation. Wolpert was executive director of library and information services at the Harvard Business School. Previous to Harvard, she managed the Information Center of Arthur D. Little, Inc., an international management and consulting firm. In 1998 she was elected to the National Network for Women Leaders in Higher Education of the American Council on Education.

Shieber and Wolpert are authors of a recently released report "The University's Role in the Dissemination of Research & Scholarship: A Call to Action" issued by the Association of American Universities, The Association of Research Libraries, the Coalition for Networked Information, and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges now known as the Association of Public Land Grant Universities. The report is available at www.arl.org/bm~doc/disseminating-research-feb09.pdf.

The colloquium is sponsored by the UMass Amherst Libraries, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement, the Graduate School, and the Office of the Provost and is part of the Digital Quadrangle series exploring scholarly communication topics in research, scholarship, and teaching.

For more information, contact Marilyn Billings, (413) 545-6891, mbillings@library.umass.edu or Marla Michel, (413) 577-0092, marla@research.umass.edu. The colloquium agenda and speaker list is available at: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dq/.

Last Edited: 14 September 2009