Making Open Access Book Funding Work Fairly

In late 2020, COPIM, an Arcadia and Research England funded project, announced an innovative revenue model to sustainably fund open access (OA) monographs: Opening the Future. This initiative harnesses the power of collective library funding: increasing collections through special access to highly-regarded backlists, and expanding the global shared OA collection while providing a less risky path for smaller publishers to make frontlist monographs OA. We introduced this model at the 15th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing 2020 but this is no ‘story so far’ conference presentation proposal. Since Opening the Future launched, we’ve seen several other collective library funding models emerge in quick succession, including MIT’s Direct 2 Open, Michigan’s Fund to Mission, and Cambridge University Press’ Flip it Open. In the same year, the UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) new policy was announced, and it included OA requirements for monographs. The landscape is clearly changing rapidly - in this presentation we will appraise our model in the context of this changing environment. The programme has had success since its launch. Within a few months the first publisher to adopt the model, CEU Press, had accrued enough library support to fund their first three OA monographs. Soon thereafter the initiative was recognised by the publishing community and nominated for an ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing. And the programme is growing; a second well-respected publisher, Liverpool University Press, launched with Opening the Future in June 2021. The COPIM project has now begun to turn its focus to the thorny problem of scaling up. But herein lies a tension. OA monograph publishing needs to be sustainable not just for publishers, but also for libraries. Opening the Future was designed to be low-cost and simple, slotting into acquisitions budgets and existing library purchasing workflows. However, as we bring the programme to more university presses and libraries, how do we ensure we are not just adding another circle to the OA labyrinth that libraries are attempting to navigate? How might Opening the Future scale without increasing the administrative and decision-making burden already on collections and scholarly communications teams, who are already picking through a tangle of transformative agreements, pay-to-publish deals, author affiliations, and legacy subscriptions? In this session, we will engage the audience through these questions, as well as discuss the role of the programme in the wider policy landscape and how it is positioned alongside other emerging OA collective funding initiatives.

Opening the record of science: making scholarly publishing work for science in the digital era

There is increasing concern about the extent to which the modern system of scientific and scholarly publishing serves the best interests of science. The International Science Council, as the global voice for science, and with its membership of 40 international scientific unions and associations and 144 national members, including national academies and research councils, is pursuing a major new initiative on this topic. This sets out a series of durable principles for scientific and scholarly publishing and analyses the extent to which current publishing regimes are consistent with these principles. It identifies serious deficits in the inhibition of access to the record of science, in global inclusion and innovation, in metrics that stimulate perverse behaviour and in the emerging shift of control of the research cycle into commercial hands. A series of virtual meetings involving the international science community, as represented by the Council’s members, will discuss these issues in September 2020, with the intention of creating an international coalition for action and change that will includes key stakeholders, including the library, funding and university communities. It is vital that the novel capabilities offered by the digital revolution are harnessed to disseminate science more efficiently and effectively to the global public good.

Survey Applies Public Collection Development Librarians' Support for Intellectual Freedom to Collection Process

A Review of: Oltmann, S. M. (2019). Important factors in Midwestern public librarians’ views on intellectual freedom and collection development: Part 2. The Library Quarterly, 89(2), 156-172. https://doi.org/10.1086/702203 Abstract Objective – To explore how librarian attitudes regarding intellectual freedom and demographic factors influence collection development decisions. Design – Online survey. Setting – Public libraries in the Midwestern United States. Subjects – 645 collection development library professionals employed in public libraries. Methods – An electronic survey was distributed to 3,018 public library directors in nine Midwestern states and completed by the library professional primarily responsible for collection development (Oltmann, 2019, p. 6). The survey had a 21.37% response rate. The survey focused on intellectual freedom in the management of collections and probed the participants for their experiences and influences in making collection development decisions. The survey also asked participants to make hypothetical purchasing and holdings decisions for library materials based on a short description of the material. Main Results – Participants indicated that they used a variety of different tools for the selection of materials including patron requests. Of the participants, 45.7% indicated that their library had a policy, practice, or metric to assess the balance of their collections, while 54.3% indicated that their libraries did not have policy or method in place for ensuring that their collection was balanced. Of the respondents, 73.4% felt that local community values should be considered in collection development decision, but 62.3% said that this should not be the most important factor in decisions. Overall, the political leaning of the community did not have an impact on participants’ alignment with the ALA's stances on intellectual freedom. Most respondents (73.4%) felt that government library funding bodies should have an influence over collection development decisions. Some respondents indicated they felt internal pressure from other library staff or the library board to purchase particular materials (28.1%) or relocate materials (14.1%). Respondents also indicated that they felt external pressure from their communities to purchase (32%) or restrict or withdraw (19.1%) materials. In the hypothetical purchasing scenario, most librarians indicated that they would purchase the majority of items. Some participants (39.8%) felt tension between their personal and professional views on intellectual freedom. Conclusion – The first part of this article found that holding an MLS degree had a significant impact on participants' stance on intellectual freedom and alignment with the American Library Association (ALA) principles. This part indicated that they also felt greater pressure to withdraw, acquire, and manage particular materials in their collections and felt more tension between their personal and professional stances on intellectual freedom. Age, gender, duration of work, and community political affiliations significantly impacted only some of the participants' responses. Overall, there was general support for intellectual freedom and alignment with the ALA principles; however, 40% of respondents indicated tension between their personal and professional beliefs about intellectual freedom.

When Paywall Goes AWOL: The Demand for Open-Access Education Research

As universities cut library funding and forego expensive journal subscriptions, many academic organizations and researchers, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA), are moving toward open-access publications that are freely downloadable by anyone with a working internet connection. However, the impact of paywalls on the consumption of academic articles is unclear. We provide novel evidence on this question by exploiting a natural experiment in which six high-impact, usually gated AERA journals became open access for a 2-month period in 2017. Using monthly download data and an always-open-access journal as a comparison group, we show that making journals open access likely increased article downloads in those journals by 55% to 95% per month. Given a per-article download price of $36, this suggests a relatively elastic response: The average price elasticity of demand for downloads is 1.2, with individual journal elasticities ranging from 0.6 to 2.

Reimagining local studies in Devon

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect that government austerity policies has had on local studies in Devon and suggest a possible alternative means of maintaining local studies’ collections. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents an historical survey of local studies provision in the county since the nineteenth century and outlines the present local studies’ landscape. Findings The findings show that local studies’ provision has been severely affected by eight years of progressive cuts to public library funding and that present publications, both printed and digital, are no longer being adequately recorded. Practical implications This paper suggests that in Devon, the museum sector may be a more appropriate home for local studies’ library provision than are archive services. Social implications Volunteers in libraries, museums and archives across Devon will be involved in maintaining a union catalogue and a bibliography of local publications. Originality/value While this is a suggested solution for Devon, it may not be applicable in regions with different traditions of heritage provision.

Benchmarking study of hospital libraries

Objectives: To assess the current landscape of hospital libraries by collecting benchmarking data from hospital librarians in the U.S. and other countries. Since the last MLA benchmarking survey in 2002 hospital libraries have faced significant changes including downsizing, position and library elimination, and hospital mergers. This survey will provides information to inform the development and implementation of effective advocacy for hospital libraries. Methods: A web-based, anonymous survey was designed to collect information from hospital librarians representing stand-alone hospitals and hospital systems. The 57-question survey was distributed via select list servs, targeting the US and Canada but open to any country. The topic areas covered hospital/health system, library, and library staff demographics; library characteristics and scope of service; interlibrary loan and document delivery; library funding; and library budget. Hospital library benchmarking surveys, including the previous MLA surveys, were reviewed and applicable questions were added. Results: There were a total of 180 respondents but the total number of responses for each question varied. Select results are as follows: of the responding libraries, 67.2% were part of a hospital system; 24.4% had merged with or were bought by another hospital or health system and, of those, 77.1% had acquired 1-5 hospitals in the last 10 years; 77.9% were not for profits; over half (55.2%) had <5,001 FTE in the organization; 56.9% had one library; 47.7% had 1 FTE librarian, 34.9% had 2-5; 82.1% did not or were not able to use social media; 60.7% didn’t have strategic plans; 66.1% belonged to a consortium; 48.2% provided up to 250 search requests a year; 66.3% did not receive funding outside of their organization; 32.5% had budgets for print books totaling less than $1,000; 30.1% had budgets, excluding salaries, of less than $100,000 and 9.7% had budgets over $1M. Conclusions: These findings contribute to the field’s knowledge of hospital library demographics as well as the services provided. The results suggest implications for hospital librarians regarding staffing levels and the depth of services within their unique settings, especially within the context of rapidly expanding health systems.

Libraries

Public and academic libraries have been among the very best customers for publishers. The publisher–library relationship is effectively symbiotic with mutual benefits. However, the digital revolution, changing cost structures, long-term declines in library funding, open access, changes to copyright, fair use, and the first-sale doctrine have unsettled longstanding practices. Perhaps inevitably these transformations have led to libraries experimenting with establishing their own publishing initiatives, helping patrons to publish their own work, or in the academic setting partnering with existing university presses to develop new publishing models. The responsibility for curation, previously largely resting with libraries, has now become a responsibility shared to varying extents with publishers. —However, the way publishers and libraries interact is changing—considerably.