The current mechanisms by which scholars and their work are evaluated across higher education are unsustainable and, we argue, increasingly corrosive. Relying on a limited set of proxy measures, current systems of evaluation fail to recognize and reward the many dependencies upon which a healthy scholarly ecosystem relies. Drawing on the work of the HuMetricsHSS Initiative, this essay argues that by aligning values with practices, recognizing the vital processes that enrich the work produced, and grounding our indicators of quality in the degree to which we in the academy live up to the values for which we advocate, a values-enacted approach to research production and evaluation has the capacity to reshape the culture of higher education.

One of the joys of working with JLSC is the amazing community of intelligent, talented, and passionate people who make up its readers, authors, and reviewers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in its Editorial Board, which is currently made up of twenty-one professionals from across the scholarly communication landscape. Because their work usually happens behind the scenes, readers might not realize how influential they are in the life of the journal. They come from a wide range of organizations and backgrounds (not to mention three continents), but they all deal with scholarly communication issues on the ground, every day. There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about the future of scholarly communication in libraries (for an example, see Clifford Lynch's guest editorial in the February issue of C&RL 1), and we wanted to give our board a chance to weigh in. They were asked to share their take on the most pressing issues in scholarly communication today, in their capacity as Editorial Board members (rather than as representatives of their respective institutions), and the following six short pieces are the result. We hope their answers will help inspire the readers, authors, and editors of JLSC to think big, act strategically, and strengthen our growing network of peers.

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Currently, academia values what it can count: number of articles written, number of citations made, number of theses directed; number of euros or dollars received; in other words, it values what it can easily measure, and uses those numbers as a proxy for individual distinction within a competitive prestige economy. What if the individuals that make up the academic enterprise decided to focus on what we value, or purport to value (be that public scholarship, community engagement; openness and access; diversity, equity, and inclusion) instead? The HuMetricsHSS initiative promotes and supports one such alternative: a values-based, process-oriented approach to evaluative decision making in the academy, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. Learn more about the history of the project, our current work, and our future plans in this talk.

The current scholarly communication landscape is populated by a variety of actors and powered by an ever-increasing array of complementary and competitive systems for the production, publication, and distribution of scholarship. Recent years have also seen increasing numbers of proposals to recast these systems in ways that better align with the needs and values of the academy and its scholars. In this editorial, members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication consider the present environment and contemplate the future of academy-owned and -supported scholarly communication, as well as the role of libraries in that future.