“Our support for licensing has been a difference maker for libraries and many consortia. The scale at which we operate helps drive down costs and secure excellent terms for libraries. While this work will continue in earnest, Lyrasis has also been deeply involved with Open Access initiatives for several years and is developing new approaches and models as open resources continue to become a much larger focus for our organizations. We will continue to work on behalf of the community to shape sustainable Open Access initiatives and will support scholarly infrastructure with support for important programs such as ORCiD and integration of persistent IDs in our systems….”
Category Archives: oa.people
Creating resilient publishing infrastructures | PubPub Community Spotlight
Adema, J., Deville, J., Steiner, T., & Gulliford (Kearns), S. (2023). Creating resilient publishing infrastructures. PubPub Help. Retrieved from https://help.pubpub.org/pub/n5lqcqb4
In this Spotlight interview, we chat with a few of the folks at COPIM — Janneke Adema, Joe Deville, and Tobias Steiner — about the many work packages and projects that have come out of their organization. This includes, but is not limited to, the Open Book Collective, Experimental Publishing Compendium, Thoth, and their latest project Open Book Futures. Given all these ideas and projects, we talk about what it means to adapt as an organization with shifting funding all the while “scaling small.”
Open Voices: Malavika Legge, OASPA, on the future of Open Access publishing
“With all this focus on Open, last year, I made the move to OASPA, which has been really wonderful! At OASPA I am Program Manager, which means I’ve got the privilege of having a couple of focused projects to deliver OASPA’s mission to make Open Access better. My role is focused on two interlinked projects. One is called the OA Market where we are looking at money flows that are sustaining Open Access, so, how Open Access is being achieved from a financial/economic perspective. The second project is Equity in Open Access, which is a linked issue, because we have some concerns that the way Open Access is being delivered, as we see when we study the OA Market, is exclusive and has some equity issues….”
What we are working on: 2023-05-26 | Invest in Open Infrastructure
“…We welcome Sarah Lang and Daechan Kim to the team! As our Business Development and Partnerships Lead, Sarah will be working closely with our Executive Director Kaitlin Thaney to build support for our first fund, set to launch in 2024, as well as to further the development of our fundraising and business partnership strategy. We are also excited to have Daechan, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, join the team over the summer to research governance models for the open science cloud infrastructure project (see below). Additionally, Jerry Sellanga transitions to the new role of Engagement Coordinator, Networks, and starts full time this month.
Our Research Team is starting interviews with project partners for the open science cloud infrastructure in Latin America and Africa project. In this project, we will be conducting initial research in governance activities and co-designing and piloting an early-stage governance and sustainability plan. The Engagement team is preparing for our upcoming workshop on building sustainable research infrastructure in Africa through exploring public-private partnerships, taking place alongside Open Repositories 2023 in June, in Somerset West, South Africa….”
Will AI Chatbots Boost Efforts to Make Scholarly Articles Free? Peter Baldwin interview | EdSurge News, May 23, 2023
“…Baldwin’s latest book, “Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All,” looks at the history and future of the open access movement. And fittingly, his publisher made a version of the book available free online. This professor is not arguing that all information should be free. He’s focused on freeing up scholarship made by those who have full-time jobs at colleges, and who are thus not expecting payment from their writing to make a living. In fact, he argues that the whole idea of academic research hinges on work being shared freely so that other scholars can build on someone else’s idea or see from another scholar’s work that they might be going down a dead-end path. The typical open access model makes scholarly articles free to the public by charging authors a processing fee to have their work published in the journal. And in some cases that has caused new kinds of challenges, since those fees are often paid by college libraries, and not every scholar in every discipline has equal access to support. The number of open access journals has grown over the years. But the majority of scholarly journals still follow the traditional subscription model, according to recent estimates. EdSurge recently connected with Baldwin to talk about where he sees the movement going….”
Alternative forms of peer feedback (s03e08)
“Today, we would like to chat specifically about how an alternative peer review system might look, or how alternative forms of peer review, might look and what questions come up, what forms might they take? Do we even want to call that peer review and to simply have the space and create the space to explore these alternatives without the pressure of coming up with a final proposal that we can implement after this episode….”
Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, university librarian, announces retirement | University of California Berkeley, 17 May 2023
“I write to announce that University Librarian Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, who is also a professor in the School of Information and an affiliate professor of the Department of Economics, will be retiring from campus in June 2024. Under Jeff’s leadership, the Library has helped the university advance its strategic priorities and support the research, teaching, and learning missions of the UC Berkeley community. Key accomplishments, in partnership with colleagues, have included the following: Doubling the Library’s annual philanthropic funding and securing nearly $97 million in funding for three capital projects. Co-chairing the University of California team that has made it possible for 54% of UC-authored articles to be published open access. Establishing the Library’s scholarly communications office, which provides the campus community with more than 3,800 copyright, intellectual property, and information policy consultations a year….”
Project MUSE Announces Strategic Organizational Changes | May 16, 2023
“…To better align with the changing scholarly communications landscape, MUSE has created a new department for Library & Publisher Partnerships. With many of our partner publishers now reporting to libraries, and many libraries now delving into publishing activities, MUSE seeks to create more connections between these two key constituencies. Kelley Squazzo has been appointed Director of Library & Publisher Partnerships, and will oversee both the current publisher relations and library sales teams at MUSE. …
As the information landscape becomes increasingly complex, MUSE has also created a new department to ensure its ability to provide robust updates in real time, and elevate the global impact of the scholarship on the platform. The growth of open access content and new channels for discovery require that MUSE effectively engage with broader and more diverse audiences than ever before. Melanie Schaffner will lead this department in the newly-created position of Director of Communication, Marketing, and Engagement, managing the internal and external marketing resources for the organization….
Project MUSE has also expanded its capacity in business operations and intelligence by welcoming back Lance Tieperman, in the newly-created position of Business Operations Manager. Tieperman was previously with MUSE in an inside sales and library support role, and also has experience in procurement with Johns Hopkins University and as a buyer/analyst with T. Rowe Price….”
Bioinformatics, data and the value of open science
“Bioinformaticians were recently described as “hidden heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic” for the rate at which they adapted to the challenges of the crisis and came up with methods to “dramatically reduce experimental lab time and enabled the communication of key information”.
Doyle is UL’s community manager for Bioconductor, a global open-source software project that has more than 1,000 developers and is downloaded by more than 1m users every year. She works in Prof Aedín Culhane’s group and leads the Bioconductor global training programme, website redesign, community outreach and support….
Doyle is keen to emphasise the importance of open-source tools and resources in research. She mentions the Lero Open Source and Open Science Programme Office as an exciting recent initiative launched to promote and support open science. Earlier this year, Lero was awarded a European prize in recognition of its commitment to open science principles….”
Antonia Seymour on why publishers matter – Publishers Association
“We’re fortunate to have the right honourable Lord David Willetts with us today. In his role as Minister for Universities and Science from 2010-2014, Lord Willetts saw open access as an enabling strategy that could unlock innovation and knowledge transfer.
10 years on and 95% of UK-authored research is published open access. What a tremendous example of what can be achieved when stakeholders in the research ecosystem work together to achieve a common goal.
Conducting science more openly undoubtedly accelerates scientific discovery. But doing so doesn’t necessarily mean that research has Impact.
There is plenty of data that shows that the final published version – known as the version of record – achieved via gold open access – is more discoverable, readable, citable, connected and credible than an accepted manuscript in a repository (so called Green open access).
How we make research openly available and how it is communicated is critical to its impact on science and society. Research dissemination being a planned process that academic publishers do really well….”
How Academic Bullying Led This Data Scientist to Open Science
“Not long after embarking on her PhD, data scientist Paola Chiara Masuzzo began to feel she was being coaxed into writing research papers primarily for one self-serving purpose: publishing in respected journals to increase the prestige of others. Fed up with this academic culture and the exploitative publishing industry, she decided to go rogue – and has since rediscovered how much she loves good science….
Yes, I was bullied into producing bad science. But again, I didn’t realize it until much later….
What I really needed to do was to find an alternative space where I could feel like myself, where I could feel safe, seen, heard, while being a researcher. Not much later than that, I stumbled upon the Open Access movement, and the larger Open Science reform movement, and realized it was a world worth being explored. In 2001, a group of researchers fed up with the publishing houses started an online petition asking all scientists to pledge that they would no longer submit articles to journals which did not make the full-text of their papers available to all. This was the beginning of the Open Access movement, which was then formally born in 2002 through the Budapest Open Access Initiative….”
Jerry Sheehan, Deputy Director of Policy and External Affairs at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Departs for a New Position at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
“Jerry Sheehan, Deputy Director of Policy and External Affairs is leaving NLM to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Mr. Sheehan has been appointed as OECD’s new Director of Science, Technology and Innovation.
“Mr. Sheehan’s extensive policy knowledge, his passion for open science, and outstanding interpersonal skills contributed to the success of the many activities he carried out in support of NLM’s mission,” said NLM Director Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, Ph.D.
During his tenure at NLM, Mr. Sheehan oversaw NLM’s policy team and initiatives, fostered the work of a Blue Ribbon Panel that helped reshape NLM’s Intramural Research Program and shepherded NLM’s involvement in major NIH initiatives including the NIH Public Access Policy, the Genomic Data Sharing Policy, and the Data Management and Sharing Policy.
NLM is currently working on an interim plan to redistribute Mr. Sheehan’s responsibilities across NLM leadership and developing a strategy to address the responsibilities of this position in the long term.”
Open Scholarship: A Decade of Progress – UC Davis Library
“In July, I will retire from UC Davis, after more than a decade serving as University Librarian and Vice Provost of Digital Scholarship.
A significant focus of my tenure at UC Davis has been advancing free and open access to information — both research and, for our students, affordable course materials….”
Championing equitable access in Latin America – Hola Arturo – DataCite Blog
“The Global Access Program (GAP) is DataCite’s initiative to improve access and enable communities in lesser-represented regions to further benefit from our open infrastructure services, launched with support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (Grant 2022-316573). Throughout the next year, the program builds out DataCite’s international community with regional support and engagement in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Through focused regional engagement in these regions, DataCite will better support equitable access to our infrastructure services, ensuring that researchers and research organizations globally have the opportunity to benefit from persistent identifiers and metadata….”
Three Questions for Tracy Bergstrom – Ithaka S+R
“Earlier this month, Tracy Bergstrom joined Ithaka S+R as a program manager focused on collections and infrastructure….
[From Tracy:] Libraries, archives, and museums exist for the enrichment of the communities they serve, and free and open access to knowledge is a critical component of establishing a more equitable society. While this underlying mission remains constant, the tools we need to administer this vision are evolving rapidly….”