The Information Literacy Gap in Scholarly Communications

In spite of the involvement of academic libraries in the Open Access movement, many university faculty have rather conservative attitudes towards scholarly communication. This paper attempts to identify the knowledge that forms these faculty attitudes by answering the research question, “What do faculty know and believe about scholarly communication and open access?” Faculty are a key stakeholder group for academic libraries and it is important to understand their attitudes and beliefs, especially since open access research is of strategic importance to research libraries and an increasingly important component in the ethos of librarianship. Ultimately, this demonstrates some of the ways faculty think and talk about scholarly communication and open access, and suggests how information literacy programs can more effectively engage with faculty around scholarly communication issues. Based on these findings, this paper makes recommendations on how to tailor scholarly communication programs to address the needs of faculty.