Scholarly Communications

Digital technologies have transformed how knowledge is embodied, organized, disseminated, and preserved.  Use of these technologies has the potential to expand and equalize access to cultural and scholarly resources across sectors of society.  

Mission and Goals

The Scholarly Communications program assists research libraries, archives, museums, universities, presses, and arts organizations that seek to realize this potential, and thereby to further our collective understanding of societies and cultures around the world.  The Scholarly Communications program promotes the common good by supporting the creation, dissemination, use, and preservation of original sources, interpretive scholarship in the humanities, and other scholarly and artistic materials.  The program aims to develop the sustainable tools, organizations, and networks of scholars and other professionals needed for these purposes.  In pursuit of these goals, the Scholarly Communications grant portfolio includes ambitious, multi-year, multi-stage, collaborative grants that promise to change scholarly practice in ways that advance teaching, research, preservation, and publication.  However, the Foundation manages the funding of these high-risk, high-reward projects by insisting on a step-by-step, phased funding approach for planning, proof-of-concept, implementation, and integration into the broader system of scholarly communication.

New areas and strengthened emphases include:

Senior Program Associate Kristen C. Ratanatharathorn on the US-UK task force currently developing a framework to address the challenges of preserving email correspondence.

Audiovisual content, the fastest growing segment within archives and special collections, presents distinct conservation challenges. These initiatives aim to ensure that materials remain available for future generations.

Donald J. Waters, senior program officer for Scholarly Communications, on incorporating modern digital practices into monograph publication of scholarship in the humanities.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative is improving access to collections in small repositories

“There’s a revolution taking place,” says Donald J. Waters. Digital technologies are dramatically expanding and equalizing access to resources in the humanities, he notes, with vast implications for the entire field. As the Mellon Foundation’s Senior Program Officer for Scholarly Communications, Waters has been helping to support the people in the forefront of this revolution.

Perhaps one of the most refined traditions of data curation in the humanities is the publication of evidence in the form of scholarly editions. In the last decade, the digital environment has been enabling scholars to extend the form and function of this essential tool. Mellon’s grantmaking seeks to assist in accelerating some of these changes.