The Sociotechnical Networks of Scholarly Communication

The complex state of flux in scholarly communications and publishing today cannot be described or analyzed adequately in economic or technological terms. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) offers an interdisciplinary vocabulary and methodology that may have promising application to understanding this flux and its impact on libraries. Key terms and concepts advanced by several ANT researchers are applied to an overview of the evolution of scholarly communications networks and to an analysis of the strategy of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). A possible adaptation of the Jenkins-Fricke analytical matrix for tracking actors across the network is also discussed, as well as its potential as a predictive mechanism for anticipating future network elaboration.