… reorients the role of academy
* Because digital scholarship focuses on access to and dissemination of
information and resources, it challenges structures within the academy
surrounding traditional modes of publishing. Therefore, digital
scholarship must also ask critical questions about the role of the
academy in the community at large.
* Restrictive access to personnel and resources reinforces the university
as the sole point of knowledge sharing. The academy, as a whole, needs
to address the tension between its current modes of praxis and
scholarship's stated mission as service to and betterment of its various
communities. These communities include the surrounding public, at the
local level; policy and advocacy initiatives, at the regional and
national levels; and global scholarship at the international level. As a
champion of opening discourse around access to information, digital
scholarship initiatives position the research library in a leadership
role for both questioning and reconciling the academy's stated goals
with community needs and interests.