Image from Arizona State University Libraries
Scholarly Communication and publication is "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs" (ACRL Toolkit). As seen above, the process of scholarly communication resembles a sort of lifecycle, each building upon and affecting the next part of the cycle.
Today, scholarly communication and publication is more than books and academic journals. There are several new models for publishing/disseminating works and for communicating your research with others.
Many Universities have begun publishing academic works, such as the UNC Press.
Repositories, such as this one from OhioLINK, collect and house works for easier access. Many libraries run repositories, and grant funded agencies, like federal agencies, often require repository access as part of their funding agreements.
Libraries, sometimes in collaborations with others, occasionally publish open access journals, journal publishing programs, conference proceedings, and digitize and make available online parts of their physical collections. Digital repositories, such as this one from OhioLINK, are often created to archive student and faculty research.
*Based on a guide by Arizona State University Libraries & the ACRL Scholarly Publication Toolkit*
The Association of College and Research Libraries recognizes several venues of social media as playing an important role in sharing information as part of the scholarly process.
Blog posts, wikis, open data, pre-prints, websites, and traditional social media are all useful in getting your research out into the world and having a greater impact overall.
The Scholarly Kitchen also discusses this topic.
See the ACRL 2013 report for more information here