How can we ensure that librarians around the world develop the full potential of the key role they play in boosting Open Access?

[ariamatas]

At a glance

• Submission Name: How can we ensure that librarians around the world develop the full potential of the key role they play in boosting Open Access?
• Contact Lead: ariadna.mtas@ifla.org, twitter feed: @ariamatas Find me at the Goethe Room!****
• External Site Link (optional - primarily for projects): For project leads, if your project already has a site where folks can learn more about your project, leave a URL here.
• Region: #Global
• Issue Area: #OpenAccess, #OpenResearch
• Issue Type: #Challenge

Description

There are many key players in the Open Access movement, and libraries are clearly one of them. While some are active, many others, for many reasons, don't think of Open as the default.

How can others contribute?

_I'd like to hear your views on how to ensure librarians around the world boost or keep boosting Open Access, and get a sense of existing trends in different regions. Any input or experience you want to share on the topic will be very welcome. We can also focus the discussion on specific topics, such as innovative practices in green open access, how librarians can reach researchers and other faculty members, or what can be done at a global level, by IFLA for instance, to boost the role libraries play in Open Access. We will primarily communicate in English, but I'll be happy to chat in Spanish and French as well!

Google doc for notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LR811IPForAupu0sa4DJt1JUHir9F_b8y_qIp6X4oBI/edit?usp=sharing_

[fionabradley]

I'm interested in this and will join you later after some time with Humanities and Social Science folks

[EstFee]

We've just started to develop a workflow for green open access in our university library. Background: Dozens (!!!) of interested research groups who want to self-archive their publications on our institutional repository. Metadata is available but insufficient and must be enriched. Rights have to be cleared, versions gathered.

Current tools we use: OpenRefine, CrossRef, OADOI, SherpaRomeo.

http://www.libraryworkflowexchange.org/2017/07/06/collecting-open-access-information-using-openrefine-and-the-oadoi-api/ https://iastatescholcomm.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/gathering-ir-seed-data-with-openrefine-and-sherparomeo/

I would be very interested to hear from different practices for green open access.

[fionabradley]

Another workflow tool: https://pubrouter.jisc.ac.uk/ - get OA into repositories

[ariamatas]

With regards to metadata, we are commenting that it would be interesting to create some guidelines on what metadata is the most interesting to include (e.g. title of article, title of journal, ...), so that the right information is recorded and not everything needs to be included.

[ariamatas]

Thanks for sharing the tools! So we have listed the below so far:

OpenRefine CrossRef OADOI SherpaRomeo http://www.libraryworkflowexchange.org/2017/07/06/collecting-open-access-information-using-openrefine-and-the-oadoi-api/ https://iastatescholcomm.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/gathering-ir-seed-data-with-openrefine-and-sherparomeo/ https://pubrouter.jisc.ac.uk/

Any more input or comments on how they work? Or things to be improved?

[leenyahodza]

Is it possible to identify a few metadata fields that will promote discoverability to avoid overwhelming research groups with adding metadata that does not aid the discoverabily of the content?

[EstFee]

We ask our research groups to solely provide us with a list of DOI. Current "workflow" to get metadata: DOI -> OpenRefine -> CrossRef/DataCite.

Problem remains that not all publications have a DOI (although most publications of our fields have one).

[ariamatas]

Do you always manage to get DOIs? We are commenting that it is often complicated. An alternative would be using the URL?

[EstFee]

URL doesn't help to get metadata from CrossRef et al. Our experience: Research groups often ask student assistants to create the list of DOI for them. An alternative could be to get the DOI via the URL manually (by the library staff), but then less automation.

[ariamatas]

EsteFee, are you on skype? And we can add you to the conversation! Add me: ariadna.matas

[EstFee]

Our current aim is to focus on "mass" regarding green OA instead of completeness. DOI is a good start for that.

I would love to skype with you guys, but don't have the infrastructure in the office. Very sorry for that!

[ariamatas]

Hi EsteFee, we had to leave but thank you for your input, and don't worry about the skype. We found the idea of "mass" in Green OA very interesting. We wondered if there is currently any way to generate all the metadata without at some point needing to do a step manually, but couldn't come up with one. Someone commented on the possibility of sending researchers a screen shot of the metadata that is needed, as guidance.

[ariamatas]

For the record, I am sharing what was commented during morning discussions. A colleague referred to the difficulties she encounters in reaching out to faculty members to explain the importance of Green OA and to get them involved. Bureaucracy is often a big issue that makes it complicated to influence policies. In this regard, there was an interesting discusison on showing researchers the positive effect of making their research available on the university's repositories as a means to get them more engaged. A way would be to show the higher amount of citations, and how accessibility of the research was improved. However, we couldn't think of a proper software/tool to track down where the work was accessed from to prove it (it could have been SciHub and not the library repository). We also mentioned copyright as a challenge for many librarians. Some fear it and don’t even want to approach it, whereas it should ideally be part of every librarian's job.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Cross-talk with https://github.com/sparcopen/doathon/issues/46 would seem to be useful here, since making repository content visible/ findable is a component of "the full potential of OA".