Open access, the academic library and collection management : new problems, new responsibilities, new challenges Dorette Snyman Unisa Library

Open access: Three scenarios: Scenario 1: “We resign and create an open access journal in competition”

Scenario 2: “Let’s put everything we’ve written in our institutional repository”

Scenario 3: “I want to publish my own journal and I see open access as the answer” “I believe in the principles of open access and contribute to an open access journal”

If open access is the answer? If the academic library’s core purpose is to organize, preserve and make knowledge accessible And to make information accessible, findable, and searchable for students and researchers Future of the academic library is tied to the health of the scholarly communication environment What are the problems & challenges?

New challenges: Finding & searching Finding: –Listing OA journals in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), J-Gate, PubMedCentral, Google Directory, Directory of Open Access Repositories (openDOAR) –South African journals & IR’s? –Do you list these indexes on your library’s web site? Searching: –Indexed & searchable in bibliographic & other databases –Do your information librarians use OA directories for searching? How about volunteering to index our OA journals?

How findable is this article?

Problem 2: Searchability of SA OA journals

Seachability in A&I databases Open access journals

Listing is free

Linking & citing information

More new challenges: IR’s Commercial publishers: –OA & self-archiving policies of publishers –Negotiating licence agreements to include IR’s –Inform researchers of policies eg. Sherpa –What about publishers that refuse to change? –What about SA publishers? –New pricing models for “author payment” model Institutional Repositories on campus: –Be involved and drive the debate –Participate in establishing technical infrastructure & metadata Researchers form discourse communities, libraries can easily be excluded if they do continually proof their value

Even more challenges: Advocacy Support OA initiatives –DOAJ, SPARC membership Add your voice to put pressure on commercial publishers –Information Access Alliance Drive the debate in your environment –Provide resources –ALA Scholarly Communication Toolkit Support and actively participate on OA in South Africa Offer your expertise – indexing, metadata, examples of other successful initiatives

How many libraries are contributing?

Conclusion Open access is not only about free If the information (or article) is not findable, searchable, retrievable & preserved Your work is not “open”, It is not be part of the scholarly discourse It will not be used to build new knowledge Is it then worth the effort?

URL’s Directory of Open Access Journals J-Gate Directory of Open Access Repositories SPARC SHERPA Information Access Alliance ALA Scholarly Communication Toolkit unicationtoolkit/toolkit.htm unicationtoolkit/toolkit.htm Creative Commons International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publication ICAAP