critical moments: chance, choice, and change in scholarly publishing

Ours is an era defined by speed: soundbites, quick transitions, and changing models. We all are both witnesses and participants in the now decades-long digital transformation of the intellectual landscape. The roles, infrastructures, and workflows that long undergirded the creation, dissemination, and preservation of scholarship have been disrupted, leaving open such questions as: what constitutes a “serial” or a “publication”? How is it reviewed and validated? How is it presented and disseminated? Who has access to it, and under what circumstances? And how will it persist? Dr. Katherine Skinner will consider the roles of chance, choice, and change in academic publishing. Using a sociology of culture lens, she will discuss this critical moment in information management and its implications for the future. She will consider current and prospective models for scholarship and knowledge dissemination, as well as the roles that key information stakeholders—academic, non-profit, government, and commercial—may play in the evolution of this field. Katherine Skinner Executive Director, Educopia Institute Dr. Katherine Skinner is the Executive Director of the Educopia Institute, a not-for-profit educational organization that hosts inter-institutional, collaborative programs for the production, dissemination, and preservation of digital scholarship. She is the founding program director for the MetaArchive Cooperative, a community-owned and community-governed digital preservation network founded in 2004 that now has more than 50 member institutions in four countries. She also directs the Library Publishing Coalition project, a two-year initiative to create a new organization to support library publishing and scholarly communications activities in conjunction with more than 50 academic libraries. Skinner received her Ph.D. from Emory University. She has co-edited three books and has authored and co-authored numerous reports and articles, including the recent ARL report: New Roles for New Times: Digital Curation for Preservation (2011). She regularly teaches graduate courses and workshops in digital librarianship topics and provides consultation services to groups that are planning or implementing digital scholarship and digital preservation programs.