Parallel Session 14 – Libraries Engagement in Co-shaping Policies for all II
Moderator: TBC
Location: Room 2055
14.1) Engaging Libraries in the Shaping of Future Open Access Book Policies
Presenter: Niels Saaby Stern, OAPEN Foundation, The Netherlands
Monographs and other types of academic books continue to play an important role in scholarly communication, particularly in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). However, the uptake of Open Access (OA) to academic books has been much slower and more cumbersome than that of journal articles.
Funder and institutional policies are key drivers of change. The adoption of OA policies for academic books is therefore important to ensure that researchers in SSH and other domains where books are an important medium of dissemination contribute to the Open Science culture change within Europe.
The EU-funded PALOMERA project set out to understand the landscape of OA policies and books in Europe and to suggest ways to increase the uptake of books in these policies and to foster policy alignment. We collected data covering 39 countries and all key stakeholder groups to gain a comprehensive understanding of the OA book policy landscape, to identify its strengths, gaps and possibilities for change and to see where alignment was opportune.
In total we obtained 650 OA policy and policy-related documents (collected here https://knowledgebase.oabooks-toolkit.org/) ran 42 interviews, and obtained 420 responses to a European-wide online survey among all stakeholders. We used the PESTLE factors (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental) as a basis to enable us to design, capture, and identify evidence that describes policy phenomena from several interrelated perspectives.
This unprecedented research into the OA policy landscape enabled us to produce evidence-based and actionable recommendations supporting more funder and institutional policies for OA books.
Alignment has been one of the key goals of our recommendations since the current landscape of OA book policies is characterised by a lack of policy alignment between various relevant stakeholders. To address this fragmentation, we provide actionable recommendations in a structured way that progressively moves from general recommendations to stakeholder-specific ones.
The recommendations were validated via community-based consultation exercises and through the constructive comments from the subgroup on scholarly communication of the European University Association’s (EUA) Expert Group on Open Science and the LIBER Working Group on Open Access. These contributions were very valuable and helped solidifying our recommendations.
The presentation will specifically highlight the recommendations that target libraries and suggest and discuss pathways for their implementation. Furthermore, alignment opportunities across stakeholder groups will be discussed, focussing particularly on the potential role of libraries.
Another outcome of the project was the establishment of an OA book Funder Forum to enable discussions on policy making in relation to OA books. Science Europe, cOAlition S, and the OAPEN Foundation have agreed to jointly continue and coordinate this forum supported by organisations like SPARC Europe and EUA. The forum will be named the Policy Forum for OA Books.
The presentation will showcase how the Policy Forum for OA Books is going to work and how libraries can engage to ensure their participation in the shaping of future OA book policies.
14.2) Beyond the Transformative Era: Courageous Decisions in Steering Towards Open Content
Presenters: Matthijs van Otegem and Mirte van der Zouwen, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
The transformation of closed to open content via publish & read deals is stalling. We have to acknowledge that we will remain in a complex situation for a long time, where multiple channels to open content will coexist. This paper emphasizes the essential role of leadership in navigating this challenge, highlighting the need for courageous decisions, library leadership and (re)positioning the research library in a changing academic community.
Research libraries all over Europe share the same goals: making scholarly communication more open and bringing the academic community back in the lead (see PlanS 2.0). The key question is how to lead this transformation? We would like to share our three courageous decisions:
- We terminated our university open access fund.
- We stimulate our faculties to develop their own discipline-based publication strategy.
- We transform our collection budget to a content budget that accommodates the costs of open content.
Our OA fund contained 650KE, so it caused a lot of turmoil when the library proposed to the university board to cancel it. Yet, the first step in the transition was to acknowledge the past. Whereas the fund had been successful to raise awareness about OA, now it had turned inadvertently into a roadblock. We were perpetuating a system we want to move away from. It felt right to cancel the fund, but it was a hard sell. It paved the way though for the second step.
The second step was to shift our attention from negotiations with publishers to our own academic community: where do we want our scholarly output to be distributed and used? The library encourages the faculties to develop their own discipline-based publication strategy. The concept of a publication strategy provokes all kinds of questions: not only about the mechanics of different publication models, but also about ethics like academic freedom where to publish. And it implies repositioning the library: from supporting academic staff to partnering in research strategy.
The third step we are now taking is to enable our academic community to put their publication strategies into tangible actions and results. This means to redesign the collection budget governance, based on three main principles:
- Integrating the funding for OA within the library budget, which enables the prioritization of both closed and open access based on impact and need.
- A centrally managed ‘collective budget’ as a foundation for university-wide access to scholarly resources and to accommodate interdisciplinary and multifaceted research needs.
- Enhanced flexibility to invest in non-traditional content forms, such as datasets and preprints, aligning with evolving research practices.
Our experience highlights that courageous, sometimes difficult, decisions are necessary to navigate the complexities of open content. Furthermore, these steps reposition the library as a strategic partner in research strategy within our university. We hope to inspire other libraries to embrace their leadership role in driving systemic change.
14.3) The Role of Libraries in Co-Shaping Institutional Rights Retention Policies
Presenter: Ignasi Labastida i Juan, University of Barcelona, Spain
The adoption of Open Science in Europe continues to face significant challenges, particularly in addressing the legal complexities of sharing and reusing copyrighted scholarly works. Institutional rights retention policies have emerged as a critical tool to address these challenges, with libraries playing a key role in their development and implementation.
The presentation will share findings from Project Retain (led by SPARC Europe and part of the Knowledge Rights 21 programme), which examines the ongoing development and implementation of rights retention policies in different legal, political, organisational and economical settings across Europe.
The first phase of the project provided an overview of different approaches to author rights retention and open licensing, while the second phase of the Retain project draws on case studies from 10 European countries, highlighting different approaches implementing institutional policies on rights retention. The research conducted revealed the dynamic interplay between legal systems, institutional practices, and the roles of multiple stakeholders. Academic libraries have often led in shaping policies and engaging other actors in this process.
Key external and internal factors, such as legislation, national Open Science policies, and publishing practices, were found to be a strong influence on the approaches taken by different institutions. The following factors have been identified as needed to be accounted for in every future efforts to formulate and implement effective institutional policies:
Legislation, especially laws that are enacting secondary publishing rights, and other laws governing copyright, intellectual property, contracts, or scientific research and innovation,
National policy environment (national Open Science policies, funder requirements or research assessment frameworks),
Publishing culture, publishing infrastructures and dominant models of achieving Open Access (whether those are green OA, gold OA with APC or Diamond OA, and the existence of publish & read agreements).
Since right retention policies are still in their early stages of implementation to witness their tangible results across most European countries it is important to raise awareness about them. The presentation will provide libraries with insights needed to persuade their institutions for their adoption, by answering questions such as:
What are the benefits of a rights retention policy?
What form could a rights retention policy take?
Factors to consider when developing a rights retention policy (external and internal)?
We will also introduce the European Rights Retention Community of Practice, an online collaborative space launched in November 2024 by the Retain project to bring together professionals, particularly from the library community, to discuss and address challenges related to rights retention strategies.