Hello and welcome to the blog for the National Monograph Strategy project.
The scholarly monograph – the book-length result of dedicated research, the gold standard for authorative academic publication – finds itself in a precarious position. It’s no longer sustainable, facing a number of grave challenges.
Understanding these challenges is a key part of this project to explore the potential of a national strategy: a collaborative approach to the collection, preservation, supply and digitisation of scholarly monographs.
A particularly tricky set of problems… but with your help we think we can navigate the complex challenges and begin to map some potential solutions and deliver three substantive outputs by December 2013:
- A landscape study: A report that provides a coherent picture of the monographs issue that encompasses the recent, relevant work done to explore the monograph issue.
- The monograph problem: A report defining and assigning value for the problems that need to be addressed by a national monograph strategy.
- The monograph solutions: An outline of the possible solutions which could address the problems identified.
Given the complex nature of the landscape we’re exploring we plan to use an iterative methodology. The project will undertake a series of sprints that will each include an open community event enabling meaningful engagement in the project, and helping ensure a result that meets the needs and expectations of the UK academic library community.
But we won’t just be engaging the academic library community, oh no. We also want to hear from others: students, researchers, senior managers, and beyond universities and colleges we want to speak to people from the cultural heritage sector, as well as the public and private sectors.
We want a broad range of perspectives, and a variety of voices.
There is a bit more about the background of the project on the About the Project page.
In the meantime: Stay tuned – we’ll be talking a lot about monographs in the coming weeks and months!