“In association with CILIP, the library and information association and RLUK, Research Libraries UK, Knowledge Rights 21 invites you to attend a one day conference in London to discuss the latest policy developments around Open Science, AI, as well as broader issues of long term sustainable access to digital knowledge, and what is needed to take things further….”
eLife’s new publishing model has sparked vigorous discussion about the role of editors in selecting research articles for publication. In October, the organisation announced that it is eliminating accept/reject decisions after peer review and instead focusing on preprint review and assessment.
In support, a group of nine funders have committed to including reviewed preprints in the evaluation process, even if they lack the traditional stamp of approval from journal editors. Among these supporters are the Gates Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and Wellcome.
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Supporting organisations:
Cambridge University Libraries
Champalimaud Foundation
cOAlition S
Gates Foundation
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
Research Libraries UK
Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute
Wellcome
“As set out in the sector’s Joint Statement, the failure of e-book and e-textbook publishers to provide stable and affordable access to key titles is failing students and teaching staff. The Wiley titles, many of which are high-use and feature on student reading lists, will after June only be available for libraries to acquire via expensive annual subscription models priced on a per student basis. This will result in significant cost increases and not reflect actual use or the how courses are taught – whereby students need access to key materials for a time limited period. A failure to provide institutions with flexible and affordable purchasing options that reflects actual use and budgets inhibits the library’s key role in providing resources to the university community and results in a poor student experience as materials have to be changed at short notice or worse still, the financial burden of purchasing resources is moved onto students during a period when student hardship is a critical concern for universities and government….”
Eve, M. P., & Grady, T. (2022). Open Access Monographs: Making Mandates Reality. Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM). https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.89184c66
This half-day workshop galvanised a much-needed sector-wide conversation on OA monographs in the context of the UK’s policy landscape. Expert panels of speakers from the library, publishing and policy worlds outlined the current state-of-play and discussed how we can move to meet the imminent OA mandates from cOAlition S/Plan S in Europe and UKRI in the UK, and potential implications of the REF.
Featuring expert speakers from UKRI (Rachel Bruce) and Jisc (Caren Milloy), the event opened with a discussion of monograph policies and mandates before moving to an academic viewpoint from Professor Martin Eve (Birkbeck, University of London) who talked about various international OA funding models and the need to move quickly from pilot phases to business as usual.
The second half of the session touched briefly on the challenges of getting OA metadata into supply chains and systems often designed for closed books, and then discussed in more depth the concomitant challenges posed by metrics and reporting on OA books (Tasha Mellins-Cohen, Project Director at COUNTER). The afternoon closed with a view from the library perspective and expert speakers from the libraries at the Universities of York (Sarah Thompson), Aberdeen (Simon Bains) and Imperial College (Chris Banks) who spoke on how they are foregrounding OA at their institutions.
[…]
Workshop recording of the COPIM – RLUK event “Open Access Monographs: Making Mandates Reality”, held June 23, 2022.
Overview and slides at https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.89184c66
by David Prosser, Executive Director, RLUK
I was recently asked to speak at the sherif event Open Educational Resources: a viable solution? I took the opportunity to look back at the headline history of OER advocacy and activity internationally with a view to see how these might inform the future of OERs in the UK.
As a long-term open access advocate, I often go back to the Budapest Open Access initiative (BOAI). Published in 2002, the BOAI deliberately limited itself to journal articles. This was not because it was felt that Open Access to other types of scholarly output was unimportant, but that journal articles were considered to be ‘low-hanging fruit’. Journal articles are (almost exclusively) royalty-free and therefore authors are not being asked to forgo direct financial reward if they make their papers open access.
For royalty-producing material – textbooks and some other educational resources – rights holders would need to be convinced that the benefits of open access would outweigh any loss of potential income. Therefore, for the original signatories to the BOAI the focus should be on journal articles, and once we had solved this easier problem, then we could shift to addressing the harder problems. Twenty years on, as we work our way through rights retention, transformative and transitional deals, hybrid journals, green, gold, and diamond we may wonder just how easily picked those low-hanging fruit were.
But it quickly became clear that many people did not want to wait for a simple sequential approach to open access. They wanted to think about a broader range of outputs from the start. So, even from the publication of the BOAI people started to discuss what open access meant for educational resources. The arguments that had been made about the unaffordability of journals were reflected in discussions about the unaffordability of textbooks. And just as concerns were raised about the bundling effects of journals and big deals – why are you paying for one excellent paper (or journal) in amongst many mediocre papers (or journals) – so the question was asked why pay for a whole book when only one chapter had been recommended?
[…]
“A COPIM webinar in partnership with RLUK
This half-day webinar galvanises a much-needed sector-wide conversation on OA monographs in the context of the UK’s policy landscape. Expert panels of speakers from the library, publishing and policy worlds will outline the current state-of-play and discuss how we can move to meet the imminent OA mandates from cOAlition S/Plan S in Europe and UKRI in the UK, and potential implications of the REF.
Featuring expert speakers from UKRI (Rachel Bruce) and Jisc (Caren Milloy), the event will open with a discussion of monograph policies and mandates before moving to an academic viewpoint from Professor Martin Eve (Birkbeck, U of L) who will talk about various international OA funding models and the need to move quickly from pilot phases to business as usual.
The second half of the session will highlight the challenges of getting OA metadata into supply chains and systems often designed for closed books, and will discuss the concomitant challenges posed by metrics and reporting on OA books (speakers tbc). The afternoon will close with a view from the library perspective and expert speakers from the libraries at the Universities of York (Sarah Thompson), Aberdeen (Simon Bains) and Imperial College (Chris Banks). There will be time for Q&A after each set of speakers.
This will be a crucial webinar for academic library colleagues and anyone involved in academic book publishing who is interested to know how the sector will meet the challenges of open access monographs. Candid discussion on OA book publishing – between libraries, publishers, funders and infrastructure providers – is urgently needed. Register to join the discussion.”
“This half-day webinar galvanises a much-needed sector-wide conversation on OA monographs in the context of the UK’s policy landscape. Expert panels of speakers from the library, publishing and policy worlds will outline the current state-of-play and discuss how we can move to meet the imminent OA mandates from cOAlition S/Plan S in Europe and UKRI in the UK, and potential implications of the REF.
Featuring expert speakers from UKRI (Rachel Bruce) and Jisc (Caren Milloy), the event will open with a discussion of monograph policies and mandates before moving to an academic viewpoint from Professor Martin Eve (Birkbeck, University of London) who will talk about various international OA funding models and the need to move quickly from pilot phases to business as usual.
The second half of the session will highlight the challenges of getting OA metadata into supply chains and systems often designed for closed books, and will discuss the concomitant challenges posed by metrics and reporting on OA books (speakers TBC). The afternoon will close with a view from the library perspective and expert speakers from the libraries at the Universities of York (Sarah Thompson), Aberdeen (Simon Bains) and Imperial College (Chris Banks). There will be time for Q&A after each set of speakers….”
A COPIM webinar in partnership with RLUK
About this event:This half-day webinar galvanises a much-needed sector-wide conversation on OA monographs in the context of the UK’s policy landscape. Expert panels of speakers from the library, publishing and policy worlds will outline the current state-of-play and discuss how we can move to meet the imminent OA mandates from cOAlition S/Plan S in Europe and UKRI in the UK, and potential implications of the REF.
Featuring expert speakers from UKRI (Rachel Bruce) and Jisc (Caren Milloy), the event will open with a discussion of monograph policies and mandates before moving to an academic viewpoint from Professor Martin Eve (Birkbeck, University of London) who will talk about various international OA funding models and the need to move quickly from pilot phases to business as usual.
The second half of the session will highlight the challenges of getting OA metadata into supply chains and systems often designed for closed books, and will discuss the concomitant challenges posed by metrics and reporting on OA books (speakers TBC). The afternoon will close with a view from the library perspective and expert speakers from the libraries at the Universities of York (Sarah Thompson), Aberdeen (Simon Bains) and Imperial College (Chris Banks). There will be time for Q&A after each set of speakers.
This will be a crucial webinar for academic library colleagues and anyone involved in academic book publishing who is interested to know how the sector will meet the challenges of open access monographs. Candid discussion on OA book publishing – between libraries, publishers, funders and infrastructure providers – is urgently needed. Register to join the discussion.
Outline: Open Access (OA) book publishing, and the way it is funded, is changing. 2020 and 2021 saw the emergence of several new OA monograph initiatives based on collective library funding. Cambridge UP started Flip It Open, MIT Press launched Direct 2 Open and Liverpool UP and the Central European University Press launched Opening the Future. This session will give attendees a better understanding of the associated challenges facing libraries, publishers and scholars and will position these in the context of recent policy developments (UKRI OA monograph policy, the next REF, Plan S) and the rapidly developing OA landscape.
Run by the non-profit, international COPIM Project, presentations and informal breakouts will give participants an understanding of a number of emerging OA book funding models and infrastructures that support smaller presses, based not on Book Processing Charges (BPCs) but on collective library funding. We’ll talk about how libraries might evaluate which OA book programmes align best with their institution and deliver the most relevant benefits. And we’ll discuss the importance of collaborative approaches for publishers and libraries, with a particular focus on the COPIM Project’s different types of collaboration, including Open Book Collective and Opening the Future: two OA monograph partnerships between libraries, publishers, and infrastructure providers.
This roundtable explores the role of libraries in open access publishing at both an institutional and consortial level.
Chaired by Jane Harvell, University Librarian and Director of Library Service, University of Sussex.
Panelists:
Bethany Logan Research & Scholarship Librarian, University of Sussex
Gillian Daly, Executive Officer, SCURL
Rebecca Wojturska, Open Access Publishing Officer, University of Edinburgh
Suzanne Tatham, Associate Director (Library), University of Sussex
Open Access (OA) book publishing, and the way it is funded, is changing. 2020 and 2021 saw the emergence of several new OA monograph initiatives based on collective library funding. Cambridge UP started Flip It Open, MIT Press launched Direct 2 Open and Liverpool UP and the Central European University Press launched Opening the Future. This session will give a better understanding of the associated challenges facing libraries, publishers and scholars and will position these in the context of recent policy developments (UKRI OA monograph policy, the next REF, Plan S) and the rapidly developing OA landscape.
Conference presentation
Research Libraries UK, an alliance of 37 significant research libraries in the UK and Ireland, is committed to working with, and on behalf of, its members to enable them to face shared challenges and seize collective opportunities.
This strategy outlines the ways in which RLUK harnesses the collective voice, experience, and expertise of its members, its determination to support them as they face current and emerging challenges, and its ability to act as a confident voice on behalf of the community.
This strategy is also an invitation, to like-minded stakeholders, to join with RLUK and its members as we work to transform scholarship and the role of the research library.
“While some have been thinking about issues around Controlled Digital Lending for many years, there is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way we view the digital. The shutting of university buildings suddenly cut off access to physical copies for a prolonged period of time (most notably in the UK during our first lock-down last year). This lack of physical access shone a powerful spotlight on the compromises that we had been living with in terms of the balance between physical and electronic texts. Pre-pandemic we had rather muddled-through, aware of the problems caused by unsatisfactory and unaffordable business models and terms and conditions that limited use and reuse, but not seeing a clear way through.
The pandemic engendered a shift in the way in which we think about CDL. It begun a move from CDL being seen as a rather theoretical and esoteric topic – discussed and debated mainly by copyright specialists – to increasingly being viewed as a potentially key tool that allows librarians to connect information with readers. We can see this move in at least three areas:
Firstly, there are an increasing number of high-level statements and resources in support of CDL. An example of the former is the strong statement of support for CDL issued this summer by IFLA. And of the latter is the work from the US of the Library Futures Foundation and their Controlled Digital Lending: Unlocking the Library’s Full Potential.
Secondly, there have been technological changes. It is only one example, but I note the news last month from ExLibris of the release of a new tool as part of Alma to enable CDL and to view physical and digital holdings as part of the same collections and not separate.
And thirdly, CDL works and is seen to work. On a large scale, at the start of the pandemic the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library proved to be hugely valuable. As was the Hathi Trust Emergency Library, which was widely used – mainly in the US, but also by at least one UK HE institution. This fortifies the shift in thinking about CDL from a theoretical ‘nice-to-have’ to a concrete tool….”