LIBER Posts “Four Urgent Recommendations for Open Access Negotiations with Publishers”

From LIBER (Assoc. of European Research Libraries):

Today, with the ESAC Market Watch documenting more than half a million research articles enabled for immediate Open Access publication in the past five years,^[1] transformative agreements (TAs)^[2] have emerged as a highly impactful Open Access transition strategy. Yet beyond the sheer amount of openness achieved, the process of bringing together the two sides of scholarly journal publishing — reading and publishing — under the oversight of one agreement places the library in a strategic position, poised for a broader role in supporting researchers in a fully open paradigm.

Re-organising institutional processes, communication lines and financial streams around open access publishing prepares libraries to “support researchers in the publication process…[which] will become even more important in the future,” as envisioned in the newly published German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat) paper ‘Recommendations on the Transformation of Academic Publishing: Towards Open Access’.^[3]

In a number of countries across Europe — the first to incorporate publisher Open Access negotiations in their strategies, the level of research article output published immediately Open Access, combining articles published in fully OA and hybrid journals governed by TAs, has reached more than 50%.^[4] In the UK, now approaching OA output levels of 75%, a multi-pronged approach has recently led to a groundbreaking transformative agreement with Elsevier,^[5] as well as the establishment of an Open Access community framework to support diamond OA journals.^[6] The Netherlands, thanks to a comprehensive strategy that combines transformative agreements and ‘green’ OA,^[7] is nearing its goal of 100%^[8] of publicly funded research made freely accessible.

The incredible progress made in the past five years shows the potential of open access strategies that incorporate multiple open access routes, demonstrating that all roads, together, lead to making open the default in scholarly communication.

Building on this insight, LIBER’s Urgent Recommendations for Open Access Negotiations with Publishers outline four priorities to bolster and integrate library Open Access strategies. Each recommendation comes with suggested actions to put the recommendation immediately into practice and links to additional resources that illustrate the good practice of LIBER member libraries and their partners.

The Four Urgent Recommendations

1. 100% open access under fair conditions, or no agreement
2. Pricing of open access publishing services must be fair and transparent
3. Define strategies to support a diversity of open publishing venues
4. Engage stakeholders in the process of transition

Learn More, Read the Complete LIBER Post (approx. 1180 words)

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Elsevier, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Open Access, Publishing