[Irtalk] Open Access and its impact on the future of the university librarian

[Gibson, H <hgibson@sun.ac.za>]

This is the the real debate. "And – a challenging issue – how to change reward and recognition systems to bring them into line with the real strategies of governments and institutions?"

Many many thanks Eve.

Hilton Gibson
Systems Administrator
JS Gericke Library
Room 1025D
Stellenbosch University
Private Bag X5036
Stellenbosch
7599
South Africa

Tel: +27 21 808 4100 | Cell: +27 84 646 4758

http://www.sun.ac.za/library
________________________________________
From: irtalk-bounces at lists.lib.sun.ac.za [irtalk-bounces at lists.lib.sun.ac.za] on behalf of Allison Fullard [afullard at uwc.ac.za]
Sent: 26 October 2012 01:03 PM
To: irtalk at lists.lib.sun.ac.za; Eve Gray; Elsabe.Olivier at up.ac.za
Cc: Michelle Willmers
Subject: Re: [Irtalk] Open Access and its impact on the future of the university librarian

I'm sure that many SA libraries are already sponsoring APCs for faculty wishing to publish in OA journals.  Our arrangement with the Research Office is that it pays APCs for accredited OA journals, while we sponsor the non-accredited publications.  Bear in mind that libraries also become  BioMed Central members to provide forward cover for faculty publishing in BMC journals.

Unfortunately, in SA the whole OA question is mired by the subsidy issue.  It clouds every conversation.  I wonder when DHET and DST will find a way to recognise OA activities that sync with their goals?

Eve's blog is required reading around here!

Allison

>>> Eve Gray <Eve.Gray at uct.ac.za> 2012/10/26 12:08 PM >>>
Dear Alison and Elsabe
There were interesting discussions on these issues at the Conference of Open Access Scholarly Publishers in Budapest last month. You need to remember that this association includes a number of small and university publishers.
In the context of a group like this, the gold route becomes a different argument altogether. There was a presentation by Salvatore Miele who talked about the consortium deal that CERN had brokered for OA APCs. The publishers had little alternative but to comply with lower charges when faced by pressure from their main constituency. Then there are the smaller publishers and the universities that run journal businesses - support for the gold route helps them.
There was a lot of discussion about how payment for author fees was managed in universities and the consensus was that libraries were the right place. If you are interested, perhaps we can find time to discuss this together with Michelle, who was also there.

I have blogged on the issue of the Finch report and publisher prices, but there is much to debate here - http://www.gray-area.co.za/2012/09/04/open-access-in-africa-%E2%80%93-green-and-gold-the-impact-factor-%E2%80%98mainstream%E2%80%99-and-%E2%80%98local%E2%80%99-research/

Best

Eve


Honorary Research Associate
Centre for Educational Technology
Associate
IP Law and Policy Research Unit
University of Cape Town

>>> "Allison Fullard" 10/26/12 11:10 AM >>>
Dear Elsabe
At the very moment that you sent this email, the UWC Librarians were discussing this report during the monthly Reading Club!  Thanks for highlighting the aspects that are relevant for all libraries.  The report presents the outcomes of a discussion on the impact of Open Access, held at British Library by a number of prominent UK librarians with one or two from US and one from Middle East.

The policy climate in UK must be quite disconcerting and we can understand how the Finch Report and the revised RCUK policy are driving the need to better understand the changing environment for UK libraries, specifically in the sense that these policies focus on gold OA while downplaying green OA.

For this reason the Report seems to emphasise gold OA and specifically the budgets for article processing charges and features debate about who may manage these resources and the consequences for libraries.  We note that Sage was sponsoring and co-organiser of the meeting.  For me, I had a sense that there was rather an uncritical acceptance that publishers shall sustain their current levels of income with the result that workflows (and hierarchies) at universities are rearranged to maintain status quo in the publishing enterprise!

Regards
Allison



Allison Fullard
Deputy Director: Library Services
University of the Western Cape
Ph:  27-(0)21 959-2923
Fax:  27-(0)21 959-2659

Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535
South Africa
http://www.uwc.ac.za/library
>>> "Elsabe Olivier" <Elsabe.Olivier at up.ac.za> 2012/10/26 09:20 AM >>>
Dear Colleagues

Interesting report on Open access and its impact on the role of academic libraries attached:

The role of libraries
• Open access will reduce the importance of libraries developing institutional collections but key librarian skills will still be required
• External discovery systems may be favoured over the library catalogue
• Libraries are well placed to – and in many cases already do – manage institutional repositories
• Managing metadata will be very important for good discoverability of open access resources
• Functions such as metadata management and preservation are likely to be done on a web scale rather than on an institutional level
• Individual library value will be judged on quality of provision rather than on breadth of collection; value will also be added by digitizing and making available unique collections
• Libraries will increasingly need to work together and share functions and services
• Attention will shift from the library to the librarian: ‘the information professional is the library of the future.’
Suggested actions
• Academic libraries need to evolve to continue to meet the changing needs of their users. Libraries will need to look for ways to work together; greater dialogue is needed between libraries about strategies for dealing with open access and best practices
• Clear communication of open access, its benefits, processes and implications is needed for researchers
• A review should be taken exploring attitudes towards the role of institutional collections as more content is available as OA
• As with all publishing models, open access carries both benefits and costs. The group believes that good policy outcomes will only result if those involved in the marketplace are willing to acknowledge and evaluate both and calls upon those involved to maintain open dialogue on open access.

Regards
Elsabé

Elsabe Olivier
Manager: Open Scholarship
NDLTD Board Member
Department Library Services
Office 2.24.4
University of Pretoria
PO Box 12411
Hatfield, PRETORIA
South Africa
0028
Tel.: + 27 12 420 3719
Fax: +27 12 362 5182
E-mail: elsabe.olivier at up.ac.za<mailto:elsabe.olivier at up.ac.za>
Skype: elsabe.olivier
Twitter: elsabeolivier
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