インターネットは、研究者たちがその研究成果を世界と共有する方法を一変させ、途方もなく効果的であると同時に根本的に複雑な環境を作り出しました。「学術コミュニケーション」そのものが、研究者たちが互いの研究を共有したり、関心を持つ読者の利用に共する、出版物、プラットフォーム、ツールなどのエコシステムの総称となっています。
本書は学術誌や専門書の出版、著作権法、新たなアクセスモデル、デジタルアーカイブ、大学の出版部、メタデータなど、現状を検証し、わかりやすく説明しています。また、これらのシステムにおいて、公益性や学問の自由、科学の発展、限られた資源の効率的利用などの価値観や、利害の対立によって生じる問題の多くを取り上げていますが、それらは学問の世界に限ったことではありません。学術コミュニケーションの世界における最も重要な問題や進展について、役立つ概観を提供してくれる一冊です。
    

• Easy-to-understand summaries of complex and difficult issues in scholarly communication
• Fair-minded analysis of controversial problems
• Discusses the complementary roles of libraries, publishers, authors, etc.
• Addresses differing needs and perspectives of scientific and humanistic disciplines

  
The internet has transformed the ways in which scholars and scientists share their findings with each other and the world, creating a scholarly communication environment that is both radically more complex and tremendously more effective than was the case just a few years ago. "Scholarly communication" itself has become an umbrella term for the increasingly complex ecosystem of publications, platforms, and tools that scholars, scientists, and researchers use to share their work with each other and with other interested readers. 
 
Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know® offers an accessible overview of the current landscape, examining the state of affairs in the worlds of journal and book publishing, copyright law, emerging access models, digital archiving, university presses, metadata, and much more. Anderson discusses many of the problems that arise due to conflicts between the various values and interests at play within these systems: values that include the public good, academic freedom, the advancement of science, and the efficient use of limited resources. The implications of these issues extend far beyond academia. 
 
Organized in an easy-to-use question-and-answer format, this book provides a lively and helpful summary of some of the most important issues and developments in the world of scholarly communication—a world that affects our everyday lives far more than we may realize.