The evolving scholarly communication field and the role of research libraries

The field of scholarly communication is rapidly changing as an effect of the Open Science penetration to the systemic processes. The traditional models are challenged and this -in the sense of a chained reaction- has an effect not only on the dissemination of scientific information, but also in its production, validation and impact assessment. This talk will highlight the key areas of changes in the scholarly communication and where research libraries support the advance of Open Access in humanities and social science research.

Presentation in "Academic Publications in a 'phygital' world: new challenges for authors, publishers, readers," a workshop by the Research Centre for the Humanities and the Independent Social Research Foundation that took place on November 25, 2021 via Zoom.

Transcript

1. The evolving scholarly communication field and the role of research libraries Giannis Tsakonas Acting Director, University of Patras, Greece LIBER Executive Board | HEAL-Link Board of Directors @gtsakonas “Academic Publications in a “phygital” world: new challenges for authors, publishers, readers” November 25th, 2021
2. context • Open Access has gained a lot of attention the last couple of years. • Not all of the interest is “organic”. • Not all parts in the publishing ecosystem embrace OA principles. • Consolidation of systems and services. • Open Science principles are key drivers of the changes in the field. • From production to dissemination and then to assessment. • They have opened the issues of publication diversity and inclusivity. • We believe libraries are important stakeholders for a new paradigm.
3. content • Transformative Agreements represent an attempt to relocate the resources from “reading” to “publishing”. • New instruments on old assumptions may serve the existing partners. We need alternatives. • New stakeholders (pure OA publishers). • New business models. • Membership programs, see Open Library for Humanities or SCOAP3. • Library operated/supported publishing. • Diamond OA journals (~12K journals in DOAJ); many of these on library systems. • OA monographs (UCL Press, Stockholm University Press). • Support other institutional units with toolkits, advices, etc.
4. systems • Institutional infrastructures have been largely ignored. The lack of commitment on OA policies is the main reason. Other stakeholders have been benefit, increasing the fragmentation of institutional production. • Sustainability: SCOSS (Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services) address the issue of community driven services’ risk stagnation, downsizing or paywalling by facilitating crowd-sourcing campaigns. • 283 institutions; 21 countries; 8 infrastructures (DOAJ, SHERPA Romeo, DOAB/ OAPEN, OpenCitations, PKP, DSpace, arXiv and Redalyc/AmeliCA). 3 mil.+ Euros totally (10/2021). • Wide support on providing identifiers to make research entities findable (ORCiD’s / DOIs). • Research data infrastructures are available to support a virtuous research lifecycle.
5. services • Legal considerations stall the adoption of repositories and the Green OA Road. • Rights Retention Strategy (cOAlitionS) & Zero Embargo campaign (LIBER) • Introducing, increasing awareness and providing support. • Increasing our understanding about OA; monitoring Open Science and Open Access • Developing services about new scholarly metrics and how they can promote equity and inclusivity.
6. ending remarks • Libraries are strong advocates of OA supporting the transition on many levels. • Some efforts are marginal to the scope of their services or have been overlooked; yet they continue to volunteer to co-create a system that offers multiple options. • There are numerous initiatives that show the strategical thinking of libraries towards a viable scholarly communication system.
7. thank you for your attention.