I attended an online ISIS (Information Service Instructional Support) seminar on scholarly communication this afternoon.  It was led by Marilyn Billings, Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Marilyn provided an overview of the current scholarly communication landscape.

Benefits of open access journals:

• no cost to end-user
• downloaded more, cited more
• more opportunities for collaboration, interdisciplinary studies

Challenges of open access journals:

• may or may not include peer-review
• perception of faculty members (impact on promotion and tenure, concern about author-pays model)
• during this transition period, Marilyn generally recommends new faculty publish in traditional venues til they have tenure

Reasons for library involvement:

• advocate new form of scholarship
• provide repository space
• offer copyright advice
• showcase student work in a place where community can see it; this is valued especially by service-learning projects

In general, the other institutions represented at this seminar seem to be in a situation similar to Midd:  they host an institutional repository and as yet, it has minimal participation.