The Future of Scholarship

The Future of Scholarship

Introduction:

The development and rapid movement in the field of technology has changed the face of modern society from what it was twenty years ago. Information and communication technologies have changed dramatically even in the last ten years. Electronic mail, listservs, and the Internet, to name a few, are all parts of the new technology that is re-defining scholarly communication. In her article entitled “Scholarly Communication” Christine Borgman states that “[r]esearch was clustered around three variables: producers of the communication . . ., artifacts of communication . . . and communication concepts.” (146) The impact of the new communication technologies to scholarly communication cannot be understated. While the benefits are extensive, it also raises a number of questions. Kahin notes that “the digitization of information and the growth of research networking raise a distinct set of issues: How should the flow of research information be managed in the interests of scholarship and technological progress?” (1) In part because of this new technology as well as the ease and speed with which communication can take place and information can be disseminated, there is a trend within the scholarly community towards interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and disintermediation. In many ways, these three concepts overlap with one another creating an entirely new landscape for scholarly communication, research and education. When discussing interdisciplinarity it is first necessary to come to an understanding of what constitutes a discipline, its purpose and its function. In “Interdisciplinarity: The Road Ahead for Education in Digital Libraries”, Anita Coleman states that “[a]cademic disci...

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