The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) have given considerable attention in recent years to practices of scholarly communication. In particular, the ARL and ACRL have identified a crisis in the system that currently links scholars, libraries, institutions and publishers, and they have proposed a number of strategies to rectify that system. Notable elements  include promoting author rights, open access journals, and open access institutional repositories. As part of their program to educate librarians, faculty, publishers, and information technologists about these strategies, the ARL and ACRL regularly and jointly host three-day Institutes on Scholarly Communication. An explicit goal of these institutes is that participants "become fluent with scholarly communication issues and trends so that [they] are positioned to educate others on [the] library staff, engage in campus communications programs and other advocacy efforts, and work collaboratively with other participants to begin developing an outreach plan for [their] campus[es]." [1]

In reviewing Our Cultural Commonwealth, the report on cyberinfrastructure and the humanities commissioned by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Gary Wells notes "both the allure and anxiety of radical and disruptive change," and wonders if the academy and the broader public will be up to the cultural and financial challenges.

Greg Crane shares his insights in a review of an important report on data-driven scholarship and the supportive infrastructure it requires.