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Scholarly communication today is in the midst of a healthy and long running crisis that has been good for libraries, good for scholars and good for publishers. It is a reflection of a hypercompetitive academic environment and a ruthless academic winnowing and reward system. Large commercial publishers have successfully manipulated this system with the complicity of library consortia, which has led in turn to the birth of the expensive and at times counter-productive open access movement that later reached its nadir with the problematic SCOAP (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) episode. In our obsession with navel gazing we have forgotten the decisive role that China will play in future developments in scholarly communication. This article originally published in Journal of Library Administration, Vol. 51, Issues 5–6, pages 415–431, 2011. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2011.589335. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholarly communication today is in the midst of a healthy and long running crisis that has been good for libraries, good for scholars and good for publishers. It is a reflection of a hypercompetitive academic environment and a ruthless academic winnowing and reward system. Large commercial publishers have successfully manipulated this system with the complicity of library consortia, which has led in turn to the birth of the expensive and at times counter-productive open access movement that later reached its nadir with the problematic SCOAP (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) episode. In our obsession with navel gazing we have forgotten the decisive role that China will play in future developments in scholarly communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a look at hermits, cowgirls, pioneer librarians, information habits, and how networks are changing the information supply chain. The Internet operating as a ruthlessly effective supply chain direct from the cloud to the individual poses a fundamental risk to libraries. Libraries have to adapt, as they have successfully done in the past, or follow the well-documented pathway to institutional failure. Adaptation is difficult and requires a reexamination of core values and the processes by which those values are implemented, including questioning the concept of what constitutes research, information, and customer service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the four ages of collection development leading up to the "network as library." Information convergence, information ubiquity, and the end of information. Examines the role of the library when there is too much information and the concept of a collection has lost a significant portion of its meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploration of taxonomy, discontinuity, culture, lost knowledge, planning the semantic Web, and how pre-network concepts such as libraries and knowledge management fit into a linked and searchable networked environment. It will examine how we capture, re-purpose, and make available what is important in a complicated world-a world in which our database can tell us both how to manufacture toothpaste and who is likely to buy it, but not what life forms exist on earth, or even what the chances are that your job will exist five years from now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides the reader with ways in which to successfully locate, hook, and retrieve needed information in the electronic world. Role of libraries, Internet and electronic books on information ecology; Changes in the disruptive technologies; Emergence of electronic book publishing.

Looks into the dramatic impact of the environmental changes on the extinction of certain types of communication technology and the libraries in Oxford, England. Archives of the dodo remains at the Ashmolean Museum; Discovery of decipher heiroglyphs from the Egyptian classical period; Extinction of the traditional library.

Questions and examines the influence of the World Wide Web on the role of libraries. Lack of direction among libraries; History of books; Fears that the Web will replace books; Potential disintermediation of libraries from the information chain.

Discusses collection development issues involving humanities Internet resources with a particular focus on sustainability, and highlights a few of the major Internet vendors and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]