Reforming scholarly publishing and knowledge communication : From the advent of the scholarly journal to the challenges of open access

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the continuous evolution of scholarly publishing and knowledge communication as a result of the internet revolution. Design/methodology/approach – Information was obtained from a literature review of the main contributions on “self‐archiving” – the broad term often applied to electronic publishing of author‐supplied documents on the web without commercial publisher mediation. The paper analyses the impact of the open access movement, which came to fruition after the OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol was established, as it creates the potential for interoperability between e‐print repositories. It concludes by outlining the challenges for information managers in developing the full potential of open access. Findings – With regard to the future of self‐archiving, particularly in relation to peer‐reviewed journals, information managers have a very important role to perform within their organization. Originality/value – The paper highlights the benefits of publishing in e‐print repositories for authors and their institutions. It points to the roles and responsibilities of information managers, primarily within academic and research institutions, in devising clear institutional policies and assisting users to self archive their papers for the benefit of their own organizations and the global scientific community.