This essay explores factors underlying the underutilization of Open Access (OA) to make education research literature freely available online, where it can benefit a global audience of researchers, students, teachers, and policymakers. Situating this autobiographical self-study in the context of the broader global and scholarly context, we use Bullough and Pinnegar’s (2001) setting-convocation-resolution approach to present our stories as points of departure for reflection, conversation, research, and action. We do so to raise awareness and enhance understanding of the complex and rapidly evolving legal, ethical, and practical issues surrounding public accessibility to scholarship. We also issue a call to action by outlining concrete, stakeholder-specific steps that would help OA become the new default for publication of education research.

Introduction: This article reports results from a survey of faculty members with editorial responsibilities. The survey explored what publishing services and platform functionalities respondents found most valuable in their work as editors, how satisfied they were with the services provided by commercial publishers, and to what extent they were aware of alternative publishing practices. Method: The authors used data collected from a survey instrument that was distributed to a sample (n = 515) of faculty members with editorial responsibilities at their institution. Results: Collected data suggest that faculty editors value specific publishing services (e.g., coordination of peer review and copyediting) and platform functionality (e.g., submission and peer-review management) more than others, recognize several challenges facing academic publishing in their disciplines (including the transition to open access publishing models), and are mostly aware of common forms of open access research dissemination such as open access journals and institutional repositories. Discussion: The survey results may be helpful to library publishers in making decisions about what publishing services and platform functionalities to prioritize in the development of their publishing programs. In addition to utilizing the survey data to assess the needs of editors, the authors also identified a number of expanded uses of the survey related to marketing and outreach. Conclusion: Insofar as faculty editors are key stakeholders that library publishers seek to build partnerships with, it is important to understand their needs and preferences as editors. This article provides some insight into these questions that may prove helpful to library publishers.

In February 2016, the Florida State University (FSU) Faculty Senate passed an institutional Open Access (OA) Policy by unanimous vote,1 following the lead of many public and private universities across the United States. This was the culmination of many years of outreach and advocacy by OA champions at FSU, with a diverse, talented team of faculty and librarians making significant contributions along the way. This was also just one instance of a growing trend across North America and globally, with impressive growth in the number of OA policies and mandates adopted by research organizations and funders over the past decade. The adoption of an OA policy still presents many challenges with respect to policy compliance,2 and there are open questions about the long-term impact of different OA policy requirements and implementation models.3 At the same time, OA policy adoption remains an important goal for many institutions, a symbolic affirmation of faculty support for the principles of OA. An OA policy can help an institution raise the profile of its institutional repository (IR), invigorate outreach efforts and content recruitment, and, in the case of Harvard Model policies, safeguard the author rights of its faculty.4

Research data services promise to advance many academic libraries’ strategic goals of becoming partners in the research process and integrating library services with modern research workflows. Academic librarians are well positioned to make an impact in this space due to their expertise in managing, curating, and preserving digital information, and a history of engaging with scholarly communications writ large. Some academic libraries have quickly developed infrastructure and support for every activity ranging from data storage and curation to project management and collaboration, while others are just beginning to think about addressing the data needs of their researchers. Regardless of which end of the spectrum they identify with, libraries are still seeking to understand the research landscape and define their role in the process.This article seeks to blend both a general perspective regarding these issues with actual case studies derived from three institutions, University of Cincinnati, Oklahoma State University, and Florida State University, all of which are at different levels of implementation, maturity, and campus involvement.

Digital scholarship is an evolving area of librarianship. In this piece we propose 10 theses, statements about what this kind of work DOES, rather than trying to define with it IS. We believe that digitally-inflected research and learning, and the characteristics they employ, are essential to the recentering of our profession's position in/across the academy. We also believe that the "digital scholarship center" has served its time, and that the activities and models for digital scholarship work are core to librarianship. This manifesto is meant to serve as a starting point for a necessary discussion, not an end-all, be-all. We hope others will write and share counter-manifestos, passionate responses, or affirming statements.