Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship	Fall 1996

Professors and Publishing in the Electronic Academy

Flora Shrode
University of Tennessee Libraries
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

PROFESSORS AND PUBLISHING IN THE ELECTRONIC ACADEMY took place September 17-19, 1996 at the University Libraries at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. [Note: Broken link to http://scholar.lib.utk.edu/netserv/index.html removed 5/6/99] The conference was organized to bring together professors, editors, publishers, copyright experts, librarians, and university administrators to explore scholarly communications in the electronic age. All sessions were open to UTK faculty, students, staff, and the public; there was no conference registration or fee, and estimates indicate that about 350 people attended the conference. UTK faculty have begun discussing plans for an Electronic Academy Seminar Series to continue exploring issues raised at the conference through programs for the campus community. Linda Phillips, Head of Networked Services at UTK Libraries organized the event with help from a group of volunteers from among the Libraries staff. [Note: Broken link to http://scholar.lib.utk.edu/netserv/index.html removed 6/7/99 by ald

Students at the School of Information Sciences took notes about the various talks. They are available at http://pepper.lis.utk.edu/confnotes.htm.

Keynote speaker Douglas Bennett, Vice President of the American Council of Learned Societies, opened the gathering with an overview of scholarly communication and some observations about the impact electronic publication has on research.

One purpose of the event was to present perspectives from many points of view. Representing publishers, or information owners, two editors of electronic journals spoke about their experiences launching and maintaining their publications. Michael Jensen, Electronic Publisher at Johns Hopkins University Press described his work with Project Muse. Michael J. O'Donnell*, Managing Editor of the Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science*, talked about his work getting that journal going. [*Note: Link moved; URL changed 9/14/00 by ald]

Expert advice on copyright and suggestions for Web resources on the issues were presented by Georgia Harper, attorney with the University of Texas System administration and manager of the University of Texas Copyright Management Center.

One goal of the conference was to share projects and applications developed by university faculty. The featured speaker in this area was Robert L. Oakman, Professor of Computer Science and Adjunct Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, who gave a lecture demonstration of MediaLink software that he developed for interactive composition. [Note: Broken link to http://ppc.csd.sc.edu/medialink/ removed 10/5/97 by ald] makes it easy to link text, images, movies, and sound and enables students and teachers to work together in composing and editing papers.

At several times during the conference a Faculty Electronic Project Showcase gave UTK faculty the opportunity to demonstrate their efforts to incorporate electronic information in research and teaching activities. The Showcase events were held in the Libraries Info Lab and were carried out similarly to poster sessions where conference attendees could talk with showcase demonstrators and try out the electronic tools.

We invite your comments about this article. Please send e-mail to the editor for possible inclusion in a future issue.

Report submitted by Flora Shrode, Reference Coordinator for Science and Technology, University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville, TN.