0.2 Preface: who is the intended audience for this report?

Preface: who is the intended audience for this report?

This report is addressed to several related audiences:

• Senior scholars in the humanities and social sciences in a university setting, who have the power to change scholarly practiceand the responsibility to exercise that power. These individuals need to address themselves to their national and professionalrepresentatives and, locally, to their colleagues, their academic deans, provosts, and presidents.
• Leaders of national academies, scholarly societies, university presses, and research libraries, museums, and archives,who share the power and responsibility of senior scholars and who can speak to leaders at the campus, state, and nationallevels.
• University provosts, presidents, and boards of trustees, who must decide in the coming decade what strategic investments to makewith the limited resources of their institutions and who can influence legislators.
• Legislators at the local, state, and national level charged with making decisions about funding for public schools, publiccommunity colleges, public universities, and federally supported research, who have the same responsibility to the public withrespect to cyberinfrastructure as they do for physical infrastructure, and for the same reasons—because ultimately, goodinfrastructure promotes good citizenship and good government by promoting tolerance, understanding, and prosperity.
• Federal agencies and private foundations that promote research in the humanities and social sciences. These organizationshave the power to influence individual scholars directly, as well as university provosts, university presses, and scholarlysocieties.
• Lifelong learners outside the academy who have an abiding interest in the pursuit of knowledge in the humanities and socialsciences, including those who enjoy visiting museums and public libraries or informing themselves by reading a book or surfing theWeb. Such individuals give voice to the intelligence of the general public and, through their active support and interest inself-education, can influence legislation and funding at the campus, local, state, and national levels, simply by makingthemselves heard.

Finally, it is important to note that each of these audiences has a responsibility to carry the message of thereport to other, broader audiences. Without the active participation such a process implies, this report cannot effectchange.