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Perceptions of Scholarly Communication Among Library and Information Studies Students

INTRODUCTION Professional discourse concerning scholarly communication (SC) suggests a broad consensus that this is a burgeoning functional area in academic libraries. The transformed research lifecycle and the corresponding changes in copyright applications, publishing models, and open access policies have generated unprecedented opportunities for innovative library engagement with the academy and its researchers. Accordingly, the roles for librarians have shifted to accommodate new responsibilities. Previous research on SC librarianship is mainly focused on the provision of services, administrative structures, and the analysis of relevant job descriptions. Little has been written regarding the implications of SC on the preparation of new library professionals, and no research has been produced on the relative perspectives of library students. METHOD The author surveyed MLIS students who were completing semester-long courses on SC at three universities to elicit their perceptions of that subject matter in terms of their library education and career pathways. RESULTS All respondents qualified SC as interesting and important subject matter, and a majority indicated relevance to their professional pursuits. Student perspectives are given on the viability of SC librarianship and the perceived bearing of this specialty area in different types of libraries. DISCUSSION Survey data suggests a possible correlation between SC courses and relative career appeal. The data may warrant attention among MLIS curriculum planners, given the academy’s recognition of the need for SC specialists. CONCLUSION The transformed research lifecycle necessitates new professional competencies for library practitioners. Implications for library education are discussed, and areas for future research are proposed.

INTRODUCTION Professional discourse concerning scholarly communication (SC) suggests a broad consensus that this is a burgeoning functional area in academic libraries. The transformed research lifecycle and the corresponding changes in copyright applications, publishing models, and open access policies have generated unprecedented opportunities for innovative library engagement with the academy and its researchers. Accordingly, the roles for librarians have shifted to accommodate new responsibilities. Previous research on SC librarianship is mainly focused on the provision of services, administrative structures, and the analysis of relevant job descriptions. Little has been written regarding the implications of SC on the preparation of new library professionals, and no research has been produced on the relative perspectives of library students. METHOD The author surveyed MLIS students who were completing semester-long courses on SC at three universities to elicit their perceptions of that subject matter in terms of their library education and career pathways. RESULTS All respondents qualified SC as interesting and important subject matter, and a majority indicated relevance to their professional pursuits. Student perspectives are given on the viability of SC librarianship and the perceived bearing of this specialty area in different types of libraries. DISCUSSION Survey data suggests a possible correlation between SC courses and relative career appeal. The data may warrant attention among MLIS curriculum planners, given the academy's recognition of the need for SC specialists. CONCLUSION The transformed research lifecycle necessitates new professional competencies for library practitioners. Implications for library education are discussed, and areas for future research are proposed.

INTRODUCTION
Comparatively recent advancements in digital technologies and consequential changes in the research lifecycle have transformed decades-old and sometimes centuries-old scholarly communication (SC) practices. Fundamental changes to the system of accessing, creating, disseminating, and preserving scholarship have resulted in reformed copyright applications, the development of open access policies, and the creation of new scholarly publishing models. These are favorable conditions for academic libraries in terms of facilitating innovative campus partnerships and developing a more economical and strategic positioning for themselves within the SC community. Radom, Feltner-Reichert, and Stringer-Stanback (2012) investigated how Association of Research Libraries (ARL)-member institutions are adapting to this environment; their findings showed that libraries are the predominant leaders in organizing SC efforts at their institutions, that SC roles are often distributed among organizational units and staff positions, and that evolving SC prospects are likely to require savvy but nimble library practitioners.
As noted by Thomas (2013), "Scholarly communications is something of a moving target" (p. 167). Still, the various roles associated with SC librarianship characteristically include activities relative to bibliometrics, copyright and authors' rights services, open access initiatives, digital content hosting and management, and alternative publishing programs. These emergent roles serve as a backdrop for the present study; the author sought to illuminate the perceptions of Master's-level library and information studies students (MLIS) as they prepare for entry into or advancement within library organizations that are shifting to accommodate new SC priorities. The author solicited students' views concerning SC within the context of their educational programs and their professional pathways. To gen-erate relevant and informed feedback, the author surveyed students who were completing semester-long courses on SC within three different American Library Association (ALA)accredited programs.
The investigation described in this paper was exploratory; no hypotheses were tested. Instead, the author formulated survey questions of a probing nature. These were based on a review of the current literature and on the overlapping themes among the syllabi for the three SC courses from which students were solicited for their views. Notwithstanding that the scope of this study may be of interest in general, it is substantiated by Malenfant's (2010) insistence that future researchers should consider the perspectives of new practitioners by asking the question, "Will librarians now entering the profession more readily embrace scholarly communication duties and the mindset that sees this as core to the profession?" (p. 75).

LITERATURE REVIEW
The present study is based on an array of SC needs among post-secondary institutions, faculty scholars, and academic libraries. In 2016, Samuelson reported on the trending recognition among university administrators that advances in digital communications "present opportunities for their institutions and faculty members to achieve their missions of producing and disseminating knowledge more effectively than ever before," and further that SC experts are needed to capitalize on those opportunities and facilitate "bottom-up changes in the culture of scholarly communication" (p. A35). Theorists and practitioners in the library field began forecasting this shift as early as the mid-1980s. In 1986, for instance, the ARL issued the following statement: Computing and telecommunications technology are causing revolutionary changes in society and its institutions. Extraordinary advances in microelectronics have fueled this information revolution, and scholarly communication and research libraries are changing rapidly and dramatically because of it (p. 2).
Nevertheless, the literature concerning the transformed system of SC and its implications for libraries is predominantly recent. Radom, Feltner-Reichert, and Stringer-Stanback's (2012) key study of ARL-member institutions showed that libraries are well-recognized campus leaders in the area of SC and that they are moving to acclimate administratively to the new SC landscape. That adaptation is also based on needs. In this instance, the needs are both economic and mission-oriented. In terms of economics, the emergence of open access and new models of preserving and disseminating scholarly work provide opportunities for libraries to mitigate the long-term and well-documented exploitative practices of scholarly journal publishers (Burpee & Fernandez, 2014;Carpenter, Graybill, Offord, & Piorun, 2011;Meyers, 2016;Newman, Blecic, & Armstrong, 2007;Xia & Li, 2015). More fundamentally, however, the attention given to SC by libraries is mission-centered: to wit, it is based on user needs. As evidenced by Dawson's research (2014), university faculty "are in considerable need of scholarly communication services" (p. 5). To this point, Klain-Gabbay and Shoham's (2016) examination of SC librarianship led them to emphasize that, "It is important for librarians to be continually aware of and to appropriately adjust and attend to the changing needs of faculty members" (p. 171).
Numerous studies have reported on the SC roles of library practitioners; however, most have done so tangentially with single-case studies focused on open access initiatives, digital repositories, library publishing actions, or other germane programs at individual institutions. More holistic commentary on SC librarianship includes that from Carpenter, Graybill, Offord, and Piorun (2011), who projected that "Librarians can play a primary role in managing information for projects of all sizes, including bibliographic management, data creation and preservation, usage-rights, and assisting with the distribution of finished works and raw data by promoting open access" (p. 669). These observations are substantiated by Thomas (2013), Burpee and Fernandez (2014), and others who enumerated the suite of professional responsibilities commonly associated with SC librarians. Burpee and Fernandez's (2014) investigation emphasized the highly collaborative nature of SC librarianship, not only at the level of the practitioner's institution, but inter-institutionally and inter-professionally. They also underscored that all librarians, regardless of their title or main responsibilities, must familiarize themselves with SC issues in order to initiate and participate in successful communities of practice. Building on this, Xia and Li (2015), conducted a content analysis of library job announcements that showed a trending pattern of job qualifications and job responsibilities that are aligned with emergent institutional SC priorities. This is the climate for which MLIS students must prepare; it is characterized by massive disciplinary change and the need, among other things, to "understand and stay on top of scholarly communication issues" (Promis, 2008, p. 24).
The literature concerning the preparation of MLIS students is robust and decades deep, but lacking in pertinent SC discussion. Although the present study relative to SC may have implications in terms of developing or revising MLIS curricula, the author proposes that line of investigation for future researchers. While it is understood that library education must respond to changes in employer demands and emerging skills sets (Kim, 2015), the author of the present study returns to Malenfant's (2010) question of how new practitioners view SC in terms of their educational experience and professional pathways. As asserted by Goodsett and Koziura (2016), "A central voice in the discussion of the LIS degree should belong to those who both experience an LIS education and attempt to apply it in job searches and in the workplace" (p. 703). Still, previous research on perceptions of MLIS curricula is mainly focused on input from recent graduates, practitioners, and employers. Among the few studies to include MLIS students' perceptions, Baruchson-Arbib and Mendelovitz (2004) examined students' opinions on the library profession, and Frey et al. (2004) investigated students' satisfaction with a recently launched online MLIS program. Additionally, Ard et al. (2006) studied the various motivations for MLIS students who were entering into the profession. With the exception of Moniz's (2009) paper on the use of case study teaching in MLIS administration courses, there is a paucity of research examining student attitudes toward specific curricular topics or courses. Therefore, there is no previous research to use for comparison to the present study.

METHODS
The author developed an online survey instrument-approved by his Institutional Review Board-to solicit the perceptions of MLIS students on SC as it relates to their education and career pathways (see Appendix). To generate relevant and informed feedback, the author surveyed students who were completing semester-long, master's-level courses on SC at the following three American Library Association-accredited institutions: University at Buffalo, Université de Montréal, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On a practical level, these courses were selected for their concurrency. More importantly, however, they were selected for their overlapping themes. Course descriptions each included modules on the history of scholarly publishing, the serials crisis, bibliometrics, peer review, reference managers, institutional repositories, open access, and open educational resources.
The survey was anonymous and voluntary, and it included a combination of questions to generate quantitative and qualitative input. The author formulated survey questions allowing participants to project based on overlapping themes from the course syllabi: for instance, SC definitions, perceptions of traditional and emerging forms, the interrelated roles of libraries and publishers, the professional appeal of SC librarianship, and curricular considerations. The survey was distributed through email by each of the respective course instructors-including the author-during the second-to-last week of the sample semester, allowing for students to have nearly a full term of SC instruction and study to form their perspectives and color their responses.
In total, there were 58 students registered in the three SC courses; 64% of them (n=37) completed the survey. Although the results from a sample of this size are not generalizable, the response rate is consistent with research showing high-performing online surveys among students (Nulty, 2008). Therefore, the results were deemed to be sufficiently representative for this exploratory research, and for general observation and commentary.

RESULTS
To simplify the reporting in this section, percentages are rounded to the nearest whole numbers; accordingly, relative sums do not always match 100. Where it is necessary to clarify, corresponding numbers are given parenthetically. Readers are also advised that the number of survey responses varied among some questions, particularly with those that prompted students for qualitative input. Responses that required input of a qualitative nature were coded into patterns of text or into generalized themes, and they are presented as such.
Initial survey questions were crafted to establish baseline information. The author wished to gauge students' prior familiarity to the subject matter of SC as outlined in their course syllabi. Previous to the semester during which the surveyed was administered, 97% of the students (36 of 37) had completed at least three courses toward the completion of their MLIS degrees, and 65% percent (n=24) had completed nine or more courses. It is possible that the overlapping nature of the content in some MLIS courses, especially those that are degree requirements, had provided some exposure to the realm of SC. Still, as shown in Table 1, 62% (23 of 37) of the respondents qualified their prior knowledge of the SC course subject matter as all new or mostly new, and 94% (n=35) qualified their prior exposure as at least somewhat new. Next, participants were asked to define SC in their own words. There were 35 responses to this prompt-some pithy and others verbose, though all were to varying degrees in alignment with standard definitions of SC as given by Borgman (2000) and the Association of College and Research Libraries' (2003). Eighty-six percent (n=30) of the respondents' definitions included language to the effect that SC involved the "advertising," "communication," "dispersal," "dissemination," "exchange," "sharing," or "spreading" of scholarly production. Four responders amplified this notion in terms of "formal and informal" channels. Eleven of the participants' definitions included sequential descriptions of SC in terms of creation, evaluation, dissemination, and preservation. Nine respondents labelled SC as a "process," and five designated it as a "system." A handful responders to this prompt emphasized their views that the definition of SC is evolving as a result of open access, self-archiving, and social media. Interestingly, the term "libraries" did not occur in any responses; however, it was implied in some. The following is among the more detailed and representative of the responses to this prompt: Scholarly communication is the process of communicating the use and dissemination of research through formal and informal channels. The process of developing research across disciplinary fields of inquiry. The promotion of advancing knowledge creation and the goal to make scholarly information available within its institution. The continuous process of raising awareness about new tools, services, and initiatives that support and assist scholars in the research process.
The next sequence of survey questions was designed to illuminate students' career-related perceptions of SC librarianship. As shown in Table 2, an overwhelming ratio of respondents viewed this specialty area as both interesting and viable. It is particularly noteworthy that none of these students perceived SC librarianship to be a non-viable career path. To this point, however, 16% (6 of 37) did not believe there to be SC career opportunities in post-secondary institutions that do not require teaching faculty to publish in order to earn tenure. Fifty-seven percent (n=21) believed there are such opportunities and 27% (n=10) did not know. Furthermore, 14% (5 of 37) did not perceive there to be SC career opportunities in non-academic libraries. Fifty-nine percent (n=22) perceived there to be such opportunities and 27% (n=10) did not know. To bring more fine-grained perceptions to the surface, the next part of the survey asked students to specify their personal and professional interests in activities that are commonly associated with SC librarianship; Table 3 breaks down the results. Overall, open access activities appeared to be of greatest personal and professional interest to students in this research sample. Actions concerning copyright, intellectual property, and library publishing were shown to be of considerable professional interest, and those relative to self-archiving and academic social networks were revealed to be of significant personal interest. Large data set management was clearly shown to have the least personal or professional appeal. Intriguingly, there were 18% more responses to professional interests in SC librarianship (n=199) than there were to personal ones (n=168).  The next two questions were fashioned to elicit students' perspectives on SC subject matter as it relates to their library education, and furthermore to their career goals. This combination of prompts generated some of the study's most noteworthy results. First, participants were asked to qualify the topic of SC in terms of their education with one of the following descriptors: interesting and important; interesting, but not important; uninteresting, but important; or uninteresting and unimportant. One hundred percent (n=37) of the respondents selected the "interesting and important" option. Following this, students were asked to qualify the bearing of SC in terms of their career goals. Eighty-four percent (31 of 37) of the respondents described SC as either relevant or very relevant to their goals, 0% designated SC as irrelevant, and 16% (n=6) did not know.
To generate some contextual insight into students' responses, they were asked to indicate whether they were currently working in a library, information center, or research institute. Eighty-one percent (30 of 37) answered that they were so engaged, and 19% (n=7) indicated that they were not. Students who answered "No" to this question were then queried about the type of library or information setting in which they aspired to be employed; they were permitted to select more than one type. There were 15 responses in total, led by academic library (n=6), followed by special library (n=4), public library (n=2), research institute (n=2), and information center (n=1). Three of those who selected special library further amplified their desire to operate in either a museum (n=2) or an archival (n=1) environment. Students already working in information settings were asked to identify the types of those organizations. Forty-seven percent (14 of 30) worked in academic libraries; this was followed by 37% (n=11) in public libraries, 7% (n=2) in school libraries, 7% in law libraries, and 3% (n=1) in a research institute. These respondents were then asked to share details of any SC-related responsibilities they might already have at their respective institutions. Most did not have such involvements; however, 20% (6 of 30) of the participants reported that they had varying levels of open access, open educational resource, library publishing, copyright, or institutional repository responsibilities.
Finally, participants were invited to share any additional comments on SC, whether to augment their overall responses or to underscore particular points. Borrowing from Hollister's (2016) survey of faculty librarians, the author included the following enticement: "Feel free to surprise the survey administrator with your unexpurgated thoughts on the topic." Seventeen students responded to this invitation, and a prevailing theme emerged from their input: the perceived value and the stimulating properties of the SC courses they were completing. Notwithstanding that some of the commentary was fulsome in nature, the following remarks are representative of that main theme, and the author would argue that they constitute a useful discussion point: "I really didn't realize how important these topics were to librarians until I took this course." "Before the semester, I had no idea how controversial and fascinating scholarly communication could be." "I think that scholarly communication is a very important aspect of LIS and at least a basic understanding should be important for all entering into the field." "Scholarly communication is the most interesting material presented in my library school courses" "Scholarly communication should be a required course for anyone interested in a career in academic, health, or public libraries." "Six years ago the words scholarly communication had no meaning for me. Now I live and breathe them. I had an exciting conversation with the Assistant Provost for Research and Scholarship about my ideas for an Office of Scholarly Communication here, and he was, 'yes, we need to make this happen!'" "This course was extremely eye-opening. I learned a lot that I hadn't known prior and I think it's a wonderful elective to have for this program."

DISCUSSION
Preparations for this study included a review of the course catalogs for all ALA-accredited MLIS degree programs. The author found credit-bearing courses at nine institutions that were devoted entirely to SC and named accordingly: e.g., Scholarly Communication (University of Arizona, University at Buffalo, and others), Scholarly Communication and Bibliometrics (University of California, Los Angeles), Bibliométrie et Communication Savante (Université de Montréal), Issues in Scholarly Communication (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and so on. Each of these courses was listed as an elective, each was offered on an intermittent basis, and each was described as providing coverage of a wide variety of SC topics. Several program catalogs also included credit courses on discrete SC topics (e.g., intellectual property, international publishing, digital preservation), or those focused on academic librarianship that included SC modules. It should be noted that catalogs and course descriptions for some MLIS programs were objectionably difficult to locate and/or inadequately informative. Nevertheless, only about 15% (9 of 59) ALA-accredited programs appeared to include SC courses at the time of this research. These figures may warrant some attention among MLIS curriculum planners, given the academy's recognition of the need for SC specialists, the prevailing notion that the transformed system of SC represents abundant opportunity for libraries, the shift in library job announcements toward candidates who possess SC skills, and the 100% of students in the present study sample who qualified SC as both interesting and important in terms of their library education.
Cross-tabulation of survey data produced some results that may have some further bearing on discussions concerning the provision of SC courses in MLIS programs. There appeared to be a correlation between the newness of the topics covered in SC courses and relative career appeal. Seventy-eight percent (n=18) of the students who qualified the subject matter of their SC courses as either all new or mostly new also indicated that SC librarianship represented both an interesting and a viable career path. The same percentage of the same subset of respondents also reported their perceptions that the topic of SC was either relevant or very relevant to their career goals.
Cross-tabulated data also provided some potentially useful insight into the career-related desires of MLIS students who were already working in library environments in some capacity. Among the 82% (n=30) of students in this study who indicated they were working in libraries-47% (n=14) in academic settings, 37% (n=11) in public libraries, and 17% (n=5) in others-only 20% (n=6) described having any SC responsibilities. Notwithstanding that the survey data does not show the nature of the any of these positions, it is somewhat telling that 93% (n=28) of these respondents viewed SC librarianship as an interesting career path, and 90% (n=27) regarded that path as a viable one.
Qualitative responses were equally thought-provoking. As noted, some of the input was fulsome in nature; however, the consistent and predominant endorsement of the SC course and its content cannot be dismissed. The author would argue that the levels of SC comprehension and sophistication were equally compelling. In some instances, the perspectives given to survey prompts were elegant, as with one respondent's explanation that "Scholarly communication is a structured exchange of ideas and discoveries for the advancement of human knowledge." Students also exhibited the ability to apply their understanding of the field in professional contexts, as shown in this response: While I feel the skills from the field of scholarly communications (such as copyright knowledge, open access, library publication) are going to be desired by…non-academic libraries, I think only the very large institutions would be able to fund a dedicated scholarly communications librarian. I can imagine large city public libraries, or library systems, creating positions like that, but not smaller suburban libraries. Although I think the skill [s]et will still be highly sought after in librarians in public libraries, I think we will see more and more of these skills being included in job descriptions for other, more typical public librarian jobs, especially in the hiring of technical services and IT librarians at that level.
Other responses showed evidence of strongly formed opinions, as exemplified by one student who described the "monolithic power" of the publishing industry, and another who opined: It's increasingly my opinion that academic libraries-especially comparatively well-funded research institutions-are somewhat cowardly in redirecting their collection dollars from their commercial scholarly publishing to OA & OER, in fears of alienating faculty or potentially risking their 'club memberships' in organizations like ARL.
Although these and other qualitative remarks are interesting and potentially entertaining to readers, the author would argue that their greater value is complementary in nature: namely, they align well with the quantitative input, altogether showing that students in this study had significant educational and professional interest in SC. Furthermore, respondent commentary suggested a desirable level of active engagement with course subject matter and an overall positive outlook about career prospects in the field.

CONCLUSIONS
Fundamental shifts in the system of SC require matching adjustments in its support structures. There is a broad consensus with researchers in the library field, and there is an increasing awareness among leaders in the greater academic community that libraries are well-positioned to provide for scholars in the new digital environment. Accordingly, the various roles of library practitioners are also evolving to accommodate the needs of scholars with new publishing and preservation models, legal and ethical issues concern-ing intellectual property, public funding compliance, and evolving modes of open access. These areas equate to new professional competencies, which have reasonable implications in terms of library education. Returning to Goodsett and Koziura's (2016) assertion that discussions concerning MLIS education should involve its students, the present study was conducted to solicit the perspectives of MLIS students on SC in terms of their professional education and career pathways. Importantly, study participants had self-selected to take SC courses in their respective MLIS programs. It would be interesting and potentially illuminating to replicate this research with a broader pool of MLIS candidates who have no SC course experience.
Although this research was limited to input from students completing SC courses in three ALA-accredited programs, there was a noteworthy consistency among the results. Survey respondents demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of SC issues. They also indicated a significant interest in SC subject matter and high degrees of topical relevance to their educational and career desires. Moreover, students who were already working in various types of library environments-mostly without any SC responsibilities-showed similar levels of professional interest in SC. The author would advocate for MLIS curriculum planners to consider these perspectives moving forward.
Additional investigation in this area is encouraged. Future research might involve the reflections of practicing SC librarians in terms of their professional education, or perhaps the relative perspectives of MLIS instructors who teach SC courses.

LIMITATIONS
Logic holds that the views of students who participated in this study were affected by levels of engagement or overall satisfaction with their instructors and course materials. Despite the emphasis on the voluntary nature of the survey instrument, the fact that it was distributed by email through course instructors also suggests the likelihood of selection bias. It is also important to reiterate that student participants elected to take their SC courses; therefore, the results are not generalizable to a broader community of MLIS students. Still, there was a consistently positive arc of reaction across the survey results; there was no evidence of dislike, disenchantment, or disillusion concerning the SC courses or the relative subject matter. Furthermore, there was a consistently positive outlook among respondents in terms of potential and desirable SC career pathways. The author would argue that this overall consistency is noteworthy because the pool of respondents was representative of three separate classes and instructors at three different institutions.