Public Goods and Public Interests: Scholarly Communication and Government Documents in Research Libraries

Federal mandates requiring that publicly funded research be made openly accessible recast scholarly information as public information and provide an impetus to join the efforts of scholarly communication and government information programs in United States research libraries. Most major research libraries are long-standing participants in the Federal Library Depository Program and offer scholarly communication services. But there is little acknowledgment in the professional literature of the overlapping goals and complementary histories of government information and scholarly communication efforts. This article explores this gap in the literature, in light of the shared emphasis between scholarly communication and government information on providing access not only to campus users but also to the larger public.