The Discourse of Scholarly Communication examines the place and purpose of modern scholarship and its dialectical relationship with the ethos of Enlightenment.

Dr. Patrick Gamsby, a scholarly communications librarian at Memorial and an instructor in the Department of Sociology, argues that while Enlightenment/enlightenment is often used in the mottos of numerous academic institutions, its historical, social and philosophical elements are largely obscured.

Using a theoretical lens, Dr. Gamsby revisits the ideals of the Enlightenment alongside the often-contradictory issues of disciplinary boundaries, access to research, academic labour in the production of scholarship (author, peer reviewer, editor and translator), the interrelationship of form and content (lectures, textbooks, books and essays) and the stewardship of scholarship in academic libraries and archives.

It is ultimately argued that for the betterment of the scholarly communication ecosystem and the betterment of society, anti-Enlightenment rules of scholarship such as “publish or perish” should be dispensed with in favor of the formulation of a New Enlightenment.

The Discourse of Scholarly Communication is published by Rowman and Littlefield.