By Laura Childs, Emerging Technologies Librarian

We are happy to share that one of Fordham Library’s own has been published in Internet Reference Services Quarterly. Hannah Herrlich is the Access Services Support Staff & Online Learning Assistant at Walsh Library, who also graduated this May with her Master’s in Library Science from Queens College.

Hannah’s article, “Transfer of Research through Academic Publishing and the Use of OA Resources: A Survey,” investigates how librarians, professors, and researchers engage with scholarly communication and use open access (OA) resources.  The ideologies of libraries and academic publishers are inherently at odds – the former values the free exchange of information, while the latter values profit above all. Hannah’s research addresses difficult questions about the monetization of information by traditional academic publishers such as Elsevier, the company that has been at the center of the pushback from university libraries against “Big Deal” contracts.

In addition to publishing the article, Hannah also presented her research findings at the virtual SirsiDynix Connections Summit on June 16th, 2021 to an audience of academic librarians from around the world.

Read an excerpt from Hannah’s article below, then check out the full story:

“In the realm of academic publishing, researchers freely distribute their work to publishers, and the publishers sell this work to university libraries, many of which house the researchers who created the work to begin with. This exchange is known as scholarly communication, and participation in this system is crucial for research output and collaborative international contributions, across an expanse of academic disciplines. Similar to other publishing fields, academic publishing monetizes its content. However, in contrast to other publishing sectors, the academic circuit relies upon its primary client, university libraries, in accounting for 75% of its revenue (Shu et al., 2018, p. 786). With the library standing as a beacon of disseminating information freely and accessibly, there is a blatant divide in ideologies and goals between academic publishing firms and university libraries, with the former in the business of commerce and the latter in the industry of service.“

Read the full article in Internet Reference Services Quarterly.

Congratulations to Hannah for this achievement, and her graduation from library school!

References

Herrlich, H. (2021). Transfer of Research through Academic Publishing and the Use of OA Resources: A Survey. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 24(3-4), 69-87.