Making Open the Default in Scholarly Communication, and the Implications

for the Future of LibrariesQQML 2016

London, 24-27 May 2016Lars BjørnshaugeSPARC Europe

20 years of experience as Library Director in Denmark & Sweden

Advocating Open Access since 2002

Agenda• SPARC Europe? • Open Access

– Where are we now?– Promises & Obstacles

• Libraries– Challenges and opportunities

What can libraries do?

• Libraries have played a very important role in the promotion of Open Access and the wider Open Agenda!

• But we are not there yet! We need to do more!Throughout my presentation I will use this icon –

to highlight, what libraries can do to help

OA terminology

• Green Open Access• Embargo• Gold Open Access• Hybrid Open Access• APC• OA-policy• OA-mandate

SPARC Europe’s vision

“Driving to make more research accessible to all, and striving to make Open the default in Europe:

For the academic community, education, industry, and for society.”

Making Open the default

We influence

• Europe’s research policy makers at the EC, European Council, national research funders

• The European academic library community • Europe’s research communities including

research administrators and senior university management, associations of universities

Our members

Key Goals• To support pan-European and national

Open Scholarship agendas in the areas of– Open Access to publications, – Open Peer Review, – Open Data– Open Educational Resources – And research evaluation & research integrity

Open Access is all about…Changing an unsustainable scholarly

communication system in ways that it can serve science, our societies and

the people on a global scale

Real Open Access is…

Immediate (no embargo) access to published content – especially

scholarly articles!

The promises of Open Access

• Open Access can:– remove access barriers– reduce participation barriers– create a truly global scholarly communication

system– reduce the total costs– increase the impact of research on research,

societies and the people!

OA and the Ethos of the Profession

Open Access can finally make core elements of the ethos of the library profession come true:

Instead of being gate-keepers for prohibiting “unauthorized users” accessing publicly funded

research,

libraries can provide information free to all for reading, re-use and re-mix.

Open Access is inevitable!

• Libraries and librarians have been instrumental in setting the OA ball in motion!

• But we are not there yet!!• The Scholarly Communication System is

undergoing dramatic change – if not disruption.

• But what about libraries? – more later!

OA has got momentum

• steady growth in the proportion of new research papers are made freely available via repositories or published in open access journals

• thousands of repositories and • at least 9.000 quality open access journals, • more than thousand institutions and research

funders have signed the various OA declarations• hundreds of open access policies and mandates in

place

OpenDOAR

Data: ROARMAP: http://roarmap.eprints.org/ (data point February 2015)

OA-policies

What can libraries do to help?

• Set up Institutional respositories and make them work!

• Provide support for university based publishing– Platforms– OA-journals– OA-monographs

What can libraries do to help?

• Support new OA-publishing models• Lobby for

– OA-publications funds to support APC-payments (where applicable)

– Stronger OA-mandates, that deliver!

Why is it going so slowly??

• Obstacles – and how libraries can help!1. Research Assessment and Reward Systems2. The Academic Culture 3. Money/Resources

What pays off in the current system??• As a Researcher:• Publish in quality prestige journals – go for the High Impact Factor

journals and you will be rewarded (promotion, tenure and grants)• Don´t bother to much about whether or not

• your results are actually accessible for the widest possible audience

• your data are archived and open• your software is documented and available• your research is actually reproducable

• For your career it doesn´t really matter that much!• As an Institution:

• Attract the researchers above and the institution will receive more grants

Research Assessment• Research assessment systems have to change• Often based on the Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

– subject to manipulation, gaming and fraud– Researchers are NOT primarily rewarded for

WHAT they publish, but WHERE they publish– – : inform about the terrible consequences of

using the JIF, promote additional metrics

The Culture of the Academy• The Culture of the Academy needs to change too• The concept of Academic Freedom is often used

as an excuse for publishing in the “prestige” journals.• Academic freedom applies to what you are

researching, what you are investigating, the methods you apply etc.

• Based on your agreement with your institution and the grants you get, you will do your research.

The Culture of the Academy• It is often argued that your decisions as to where

you publish, how you publish, the rights and permissions you give to readers/users etc belongs to your academic freedom.

• “It is my academic freedom to decide where to publish”!

• I disagree!

Academic Responsibility• Applies to how you share your research, your

findings, your data, your software!!• We need stronger mandates from research

funders and research institutions• Research funders and research institutions should

be very specific as to how they expect researchers to disseminate their findings!

• Responsible researcher conduct is to share results, data and software in the open

It should have been open in the first place!

If your papers, your data and your software are not in the open, it

should not count!

How can Libraries help to Change the Culture?

• Work for stronger OA mandates• When educating students and younger

researchers - promote responsible behaviour, which is

• Sharing your research in the Open!

Money/Resources #1• Prepare for the dramatic changes that will come!• When Open becomes the norm in the next 10 years, it will

disrupt many aspects of academic library operations• Libraries will have to re-consider their value proposition • Better to be proactive than reactive!• Better to disrupt than being disrupted.• With the advent of ”Open as the Default” pressures on

library budgets will only increase!

Money/Resources #2• Even the richest libraries cannot license all the content

that their researchers need!• “Despite price increases academic libraries have

continued to purchase as many scholarly journals as they possibly could”

• “Have decreased their book purchasing”. • “The time has come to simply stop!”• Quotes: David W. Lewis: Library budgets, open access, and the future

scholarly communication (2008!!)- http://crln.acrl.org/content/69/5/271.full.pdf+html

Money/Resources #4• Significant reallocation of resources is needed! • “The central truth for libraries and the campuses they

support is that scholarly communication based on subscription journals is no longer affordable” - Lewis

• Acquiring and providing content:– your unique collections: digitize them, make them

visible, bring them into the flow – to the benfit of all!– the content, that ”everyone” license: collaborate on a

higher level (consortia) – reduce overhead costs – give in on autonomy and control! Lorcan Dempsey

Money/Resources #5• Discovery tools: bring them up on a higher

level – regional, national. Lorcan Dempsey• Todays students, tomorrows researchers

want web-scale solutions – hardly institution based tools. Attracted to Google Scholar (fragile), SciHub (illegal)

• Collaborate to provide community owned tools!

Money/Resources #6• Reallocate staff:• Collaborating on content and tools can free

staff resources to support implementation of the Open

• New positions: data curation manager, scholarly communications officer, publisher

Wrap up #1• We have won the discussion about Open

Access!• Libaries and librarians have played an

important role in this!• Open (Access) is inevitable!• The question is how it will be implemented!

Wrap up #2• Libraries need to change significantly!• Incremental change is not sufficient!• Libraries need to significantly reallocate

(staff) resources!• Much more committed collaboration on a

higher level based on trust rather than control is needed !

The Library: the Heart of the University

The Library, the skills, kompetence, systems and

services: the Blood of the University

Libraries have a bright future

if they can re-engineer themselves quickly!

Can you do that?

Yes, you can!

Provided that you collaborate much more committed,

Give in on autonomy and control &Are bold and brave!

Thank you for listening

By the way:Join SPARC Europe: http://

sparceurope.org/submission-form

Support DOAJ: https://doaj.org/supportDoaj

OrContact me: lars@doaj.org