Category Archives: oa.lyrasis

Open Access Book Programs: Answering Libraries’ Questions | Open Access Books Network

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By Sharla Lair (Senior Strategist of Open Access and Scholarly Communication Initiatives, LYRASIS)

The library community is looking for new ways to use the funds they steward to open more scholarly content. There are fairly established strategies for funding open access (OA) journals, but many librarians have been asking:

What are the opportunities to direct funds to make scholarly books OA? And how do libraries evaluate these programs to determine whether library funds should be used to support them?

 

OA Book Programs: What are they and where to find them

The following is a fairly comprehensive list of OA book programs that are actively seeking funding from the library community:

Central European University Press Opening the Future
Knowledge Unlatched
Language Science Press
Liverpool University Press Opening the Future
Lever Press
Luminos
LYRASIS United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund
MIT Press Direct to Open
Open Book Publishers
Punctum Books
Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME)
University of Michigan Press Fund to Mission

Various entities are aggregating lists of these programs so that they are easier for libraries to find:

In the United States, LYRASIS maintains a list of all of the OA programs they support, including books programs.
Jisc also acts as a hub of OA ebook programs for UK institutions.
Libraries can also look to their peers for guidance. Some libraries are listing the programs they support like KU Leuven and the University of Kansas.

Evaluating Open Access Books Programs

Once you know where you can find these programs, you then need to evaluate them to determine whether your library wants to dedicate part of its budget to support any of them. It can be overwhelming to evaluate these programs, especially with decreasing staff and resources. So where is the best place to start? Libraries that do participate in OA book programs usually start by asking a few questions.

[…]

 

Open Research Infrastructure Programs at LYRASIS

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“Academic libraries, and institutional repositories in particular, play a key role in the ongoing quest for ways to gather metrics and connect the dots between researchers and research contributions in order to measure “institutional impact,” while also streamlining workflows to reduce administrative burden. Identifying accurate metrics and measurements for illustrating “impact” is a goal that many academic research institutions share, but these goals can only be met to the extent that all organizations across the research and scholarly communication landscape are using best practices and shared standards in research infrastructure. For example, persistent identifiers (PIDs) such as ORCID iDs (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) and DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) have emerged as crucial best practices for establishing connections between researchers and their contributions while also serving as a mechanism for interoperability in sharing data across systems. The more institutions using persistent identifiers (PIDs) in their workflows, the more connections can be made between entities, making research objects more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable). Also, when measuring institutional repository usage, clean, comparable, standards-based statistics are needed for accurate internal assessment, as well as for benchmarking with peer institutions….”

Open Research Infrastructure Programs at LYRASIS

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“Academic libraries, and institutional repositories in particular, play a key role in the ongoing quest for ways to gather metrics and connect the dots between researchers and research contributions in order to measure “institutional impact,” while also streamlining workflows to reduce administrative burden. Identifying accurate metrics and measurements for illustrating “impact” is a goal that many academic research institutions share, but these goals can only be met to the extent that all organizations across the research and scholarly communication landscape are using best practices and shared standards in research infrastructure. For example, persistent identifiers (PIDs) such as ORCID iDs (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) and DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) have emerged as crucial best practices for establishing connections between researchers and their contributions while also serving as a mechanism for interoperability in sharing data across systems. The more institutions using persistent identifiers (PIDs) in their workflows, the more connections can be made between entities, making research objects more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable). Also, when measuring institutional repository usage, clean, comparable, standards-based statistics are needed for accurate internal assessment, as well as for benchmarking with peer institutions….”

IRUS-US: Institutional Repository Usage Statistics Service

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“LYRASIS is partnering with Jisc to form and administer a new IRUS-US community of users. Institutions participating in IRUS-US install the IRUS tracker, allowing Jisc to collects raw download data for all item types and processes those raw data into COUNTER-conformant statistics. Those statistics are aggregated in open access statistical reports, allowing institutions to: share usage information with individual researchers; share usage information with administration; compare usage information with peer institutions; and use usage information to identify national trends.

IRUS-US functions as a small piece of code that is added to IR, enabling a ‘tracker protocol’ that allows Jisc to collect the raw data. Current compatible IR softwares include Dspace, Eprints, Fedora, Figshare, Haplo, Pure portal, Worktribe, Equella and Esploro. Any institution using a software not listed above should contact LYRASIS and indicate their interest, and we will do our best to encourage the software creators to add IRUS tracker functionality into their software capabilities.”

IRUS-US: Institutional Repository Usage Statistics Service

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“LYRASIS is partnering with Jisc to form and administer a new IRUS-US community of users. Institutions participating in IRUS-US install the IRUS tracker, allowing Jisc to collects raw download data for all item types and processes those raw data into COUNTER-conformant statistics. Those statistics are aggregated in open access statistical reports, allowing institutions to: share usage information with individual researchers; share usage information with administration; compare usage information with peer institutions; and use usage information to identify national trends.

IRUS-US functions as a small piece of code that is added to IR, enabling a ‘tracker protocol’ that allows Jisc to collect the raw data. Current compatible IR softwares include Dspace, Eprints, Fedora, Figshare, Haplo, Pure portal, Worktribe, Equella and Esploro. Any institution using a software not listed above should contact LYRASIS and indicate their interest, and we will do our best to encourage the software creators to add IRUS tracker functionality into their software capabilities.”

Call for Papers: The Global Transition to Open: Structuring Library Sustainability Toward a More Equitable Knowledge Ecosystem | Commonplace

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We invite contributions to a series that explores how libraries are realigning their collections spending with their values around Open. We ask that abstracts of 300 words or fewer be submitted by Monday, September 13, 2021 (please see key details below). 

Libraries face a dizzying and growing array of open access investment opportunities. These range from open infrastructure to new open access publisher agreements. Although libraries can be motivated by altruism when investing in open initiatives, many are trying to embed “openness” into their collections strategies. This is much easier said than done when emerging open access models rarely mimic the legacy subscription or one-time purchase models upon which the library community has grown accustomed. This series seeks to examine the challenges and efforts underway at academic libraries as they make their way forward in this new environment. 

An article published in the Commonplace in June 2021 titled “Balancing Investments in Open Access: Sustainability and Innovation” inspired this upcoming series. In this article, Annie Johnson raises questions that many in the library community are starting to ask: 

“So how can we ensure that our support for open does not become unsustainable in the face of continued cuts to our collections budget? And perhaps more importantly, how can we make informed, strategic decisions about which initiatives to support (and which not to support) when each agreement takes so much time to evaluate, and staff are already spread so thin?”[undefined]

These are critical questions that all academic libraries are facing. We believe sharing our stories and learnings at this important juncture will help us to collectively navigate the challenges ahead and, critically, to create a more equitable and just scholarly communication system.

We seek proposals that will address topics or questions, such as:

What guiding goals and principles can help libraries make decisions and measure the efficacy of their spending?

How is “transformative” defined? What are we transforming?

How are libraries balancing local reading and publishing needs with the desire to transform global scholarly communications?

How do we bridge the organizational divide between collections and scholarly communications?

Who are the key stakeholders and how do we secure their buy-in?

When should we go it alone and when do we partner?

How do we align open knowledge practices and spending with issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice?

How can libraries talk to each other and/or across campus about these topics? 

What new top-down models encourage new, sustainable, and open frameworks (rather than just operate within the existing, legacy structure)? Who has implemented them, and how?

Describe strategies for libraries that do not have a Press at their university, that can still support local open scholarly publishing efforts.

Anything you think we’ve missed!

LYRASIS 2021 Open Source Software Report: Understanding the Landscape of Open Source Software Support in American Libraries

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Abstract:  The LYRASIS open source software (OSS) survey was conducted in spring 2021 as a mechanism to better understand how institutions interact with and support OSS programs. For the purposes of the survey, OSS programs were defined as community-based programs specifically designed for GLAM institutions, such as FOLIO, ArchivesSpace (a LYRASIS supported community), and Omeka. This report provides institutions with an opportunity to see where their efforts fall amongst the activities of their peers in three categories: funding/supporting OSS, justifying OSS, and evaluating OSS. The first section covers how/how much institutions contribute to OSS programs, either through financial contributions or staff time devoted to program contributions/governance. The second section focuses on how institutions justify investment in OSS programs. The final section covers the ways that GLAM institutions determine the qualifications for OSS, their evaluation tactics, and their decision-making about long term OSS maintenance.

 

New Digital Platform Empowers Public Libraries and Patrons, Boosts Equitable Access to Knowledge | DPLA

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“A powerful partnership of industry leaders today announced The Palace Project, a transformational, library-centered platform for digital content and services.  

The Palace Project, with a $5 million investment by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for LYRASIS, and in strategic partnership with Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), will develop and scale a robust suite of content, services, and tools for the delivery of ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital media to benefit public libraries and patrons.  …”

Press Release: Springer Nature and LYRASIS Announce Open Access Sponsorship Agreement for Books that Support Research and Teaching Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

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“Springer Nature has signed its first sponsorship agreement for open access books with LYRASIS, a US non-profit membership association of libraries, archives, and museums, starting in 2021. The agreement is set to lead to the publication of new open access book titles. The collaboration will focus on climate change, equity, peace, and justice and will provide free access to research in critical areas that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Springer Nature is helping to advance the SDGs through a dedicated SDG publishing programme, bringing to light and disseminating important knowledge related to the world’s most pressing challenges. Since the SDGs were launched in 2015, Springer Nature has published more than 300,000 relevant articles and book chapters, which have been downloaded more than 750 million times. Springer Nature is also leading the way in open access book (OA) publishing, first piloting open access books in 2011. Its open access book portfolio now includes over 1,400 titles spanning all academic disciplines, with more than 170 million chapter downloads worldwide. As research shows that open access books are downloaded ten times more often and cited 2.4 times more, reaching 61% more countries compared to non-open access books, this new sponsoring partnership will foster the advancement of science as well as the visibility, dissemination and impact of research on these critical challenges. 

The new open access book titles will be published under the Springer Nature imprints of Springer and Palgrave Macmillan under a CC BY 4.0 licence to give readers around the world free access to the books via Springer Nature’s content platform SpringerLink. …”

Repurposing Subscription Dollars for Open Access Investments: OACIP Pilot Opportunities

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“If you are like many libraries, consortia, and academic units, you are interested in supporting open access publishing. You may be looking for ways to repurpose your subscription publishing dollars, but struggling with the administrative burden of evaluating how and where to reinvest precious funds.

 

In December 2020, we launched the Open Access Community Investment Program (OACIP), a community-funded open access publishing project. OACIP’s goal is to help match libraries, consortia, and other prospective scholarly publishing funders with non-profit publishers and journal editorial boards that are seeking financial investments to sustain or transition to open access publishing of journals or books.

Do you want to get started in evaluating OA investment opportunities? The OACIP pilot phase has launched with crowd-sourced investment opportunities for two journals. We invite you to learn more about OACIP’s criteria-driven funding approach and determine if investing in these two journals is right for you. We are hosting a webinar about the OACIP pilot premised on engaging discussion with the editorial boards and publishers of the participating journals….”

Repurposing Subscription Dollars for Open Access Investments: OACIP Pilot Opportunities

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“If you are like many libraries, consortia, and academic units, you are interested in supporting open access publishing. You may be looking for ways to repurpose your subscription publishing dollars, but struggling with the administrative burden of evaluating how and where to reinvest precious funds.

 

In December 2020, we launched the Open Access Community Investment Program (OACIP), a community-funded open access publishing project. OACIP’s goal is to help match libraries, consortia, and other prospective scholarly publishing funders with non-profit publishers and journal editorial boards that are seeking financial investments to sustain or transition to open access publishing of journals or books.

Do you want to get started in evaluating OA investment opportunities? The OACIP pilot phase has launched with crowd-sourced investment opportunities for two journals. We invite you to learn more about OACIP’s criteria-driven funding approach and determine if investing in these two journals is right for you. We are hosting a webinar about the OACIP pilot premised on engaging discussion with the editorial boards and publishers of the participating journals….”

Pilot Program Offers NYU Students and Faculty Instant Access to 150,000 Ebooks Via App

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“NYU Libraries and ProQuest have launched a pilot project that will make over 150,000 scholarly titles available to students and faculty via their mobile devices. NYU users can access coursebooks, ebooks, and reference works from major publishers through an e-reader app called SimplyE….”

Punctum Books Library Program Partners with Lyrasis for the US & Canada · punctum books

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“As the Punctum Books Supporting Library Membership Program, launched in collaboration with the University of California Santa Barbara as a network of collective support for open access book publishing, has entered its second year, we are proud to announce that punctum books has partnered with LYRASIS to broaden our reach among US and Canadian academic libraries.

LYRASIS, a not-for-profit membership organization of more than 1,000 libraries, museums, and archives supports enduring access to our shared academic, scientific, and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions, and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums, and knowledge communities worldwide.

Our partnership with LYRASIS will complement our partnership with Jisc in the UK, which already has seen several UK-based academic libraries sign up to support punctum in its mission to publish open-access books that push the boundaries of scholarship….”

LYRASIS and Michigan Publishing Advance Community-owned, Publishing Ecosystem for eBook Distribution and Reading with Open-source System Integration

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“LYRASIS and Michigan Publishing announce the successful integration of the Fulcrum platform with Library Simplified/SimplyE and The Readium Foundation’s Thorium Desktop Reader. 

This initiative brings together three open source reading and content delivery platforms, utilizing entirely open standards and technologies. By working together, the partners are improving discovery and access for ebooks and supporting the sustainability and scalability of two community-led social enterprises. …”

Open Access Community Investment Program Pilot

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“How do libraries, consortia, and other scholarly publishing stakeholders decide what open access (OA) content to invest in when divesting from paywalled content? In the emerging OA publishing market, stakeholders must consider thousands of OA publications, while often lacking sufficient data relevant to their own values or the pros and cons of each opportunity. This one-off nature of OA investment is not conducive to easy administration or participation. Vetting and procurement processes become onerous as programs increase. While the scholarly publishing community has a great willingness to work together to support OA efforts, we need a stronger, more effective connection infrastructure to sustainably transition to OA. 

 
LYRASIS, TSPOA, and Duke University Press have developed this Open Access Community Investment Program Pilot (“Pilot Project”) to test the viability, scalability, and sustainability of infrastructure, a criteria-based vetting mechanism, and outreach to help match funding entities or potential investors with publishers or journals seeking funding to publish open access. These potential investors encompass the range of scholarly publishing stakeholders, including for example: libraries, consortia, and funders, academic centers/departments, and cultural institutions. The term “stakeholders” as used throughout this document references this range of potential investors. While the initial set of open access initiatives or programs will be U.S. based, the community of investing stakeholders is expected to be global….”