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Scholars and Scripts, Eyeballs and Epistemes:
What it Means to Publish

Blaise Cronin

Rudy Professor of Information Science
Indiana University Bloomington

29 April 2004

9:00-9:30 am
Coffee and Pastries

9:30-11:00 am
Presentation and Q&A

OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
Kilgour Auditorium
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH 43017-3395

The name of the game may be " publish or perish," but the rules of the game are neither standard nor fixed, and it doesn't make much sense to talk about the scholarly communication system, or the future of scholarly publication.

Scholars today can create, post, publish, distribute, and archive their research in myriad ways. Their choices, however, have as much to do with the values and norms of their intellectual and academic cultures as they do with the characteristics of available technologies.

We can expect to see more experimentation and innovation in the years ahead, and branding and impression management will become facts of life. The scramble for eyeballs is set to move up a gear, along with the search for new modes of communication and publication, and new measures of scholarly impact. Pluralism, plasticity, and adaptivity will be defining features of the New World Order.

Blaise Cronin's presentation will address this New World Order in academic publishing. Come join us for a lively discussion about the culture of scholarly communication and its likely impact on various modes of publication.

Blaise Cronin is the Rudy Professor of Information Science at Indiana University Bloomington, where he was Dean of the School of Library and Information Science from 1991 to 2003, a position he reassumes in July 2004. Professor Cronin's research has focused on scholarly communication, citation analysis, collaboration in science, scientometrics, cybermetrics, information warfare, strategic intelligence, knowledge management, information marketing, and distributed education. In addition, Professor Cronin has taught, conducted research, or consulted in more than thirty countries.

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