United Kingdom

Following sharp increases at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic ebooks are now commonly 300% - 2000% more expensive than hardcopy alternatives, with licences often restricted to single-use only. COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the dysfunctional ebook market. Several publishers require libraries to subscribe to the publisher&#39;s ebook packages via their, or 3rd party platforms. Such packages offer questionable value, impact negatively on academic freedoms and jeopardize sustainable access to resources. We discuss the #ebooksos campaign, the library profession&#39;s role in countering these issues and the long-term consequences if they are not addressed.


UKSG Annual Conference 2021

#Ebooksos scandal: the need for critical collection development

campaign

ebooks. collection development

The UKSG Annual Conference and Exhibition 2021 will be held online for the first time. The event is a major event in the scholarly communications calendar which attracts a large number of delegates each year from around the world - librarians, publishers, content providers, consultants and intermediaries. The conference combines high-quality plenary presentations, lightning talks and breakout sessions with virtual social events and a major online trade exhibition.



 UKSG Annual Conference is a major event in the scholarly communications calendar which attracts a large number of delegates each year from around the world - librarians, publishers, content providers, consultants and intermediaries. 

Following sharp increases at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic ebooks are now commonly 300% - 2000% more expensive than hardcopy alternatives, with licences often restricted to single-use only. COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the dysfunctional ebook market. Several publishers require libraries to subscribe to the publisher's ebook packages via their, or 3rd party platforms. Such packages offer questionable value, impact negatively on academic freedoms and jeopardize sustainable access to resources. We discuss the #ebooksos campaign, the library profession's role in countering these issues and the long-term consequences if they are not addressed.


technical paper

After a successful pilot using the Open Journals System (OJS) Liverpool John Moores University launched its open journals service, managed by Library Services. From small beginnings the service is growing and expanding into the sphere of academic journals. With the increasing pressure to publish and make work open access what role can a university open journals service play in supporting that goal? 

This presentation will share my experience of setting up and managing an open journals service and how this has developed over time. It will talk about the practicalities of running such a service as well as highlight the positives and share lessons learned.

The accidental publisher: the highs and lows of running an open journals service single-handedly

The landscape is evolving rapidly for open access books. In 2020 continued effort took place to transition to open in order to create sustainable and meaningful change. As part of this work, two open access toolkits were developed -- one by the OAPEN Foundation and one by Jisc -- to offer practical support and guidance to the community. The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit aims to help authors better understand OA for books, increase trust in OA book publishing, provide reliable and easy-to-find answers to questions from authors. The Jisc open access toolkit aims to support New University Presses and library-led publishing. The toolkit includes advice and guidance on all aspects of the publications workflow. 
The two toolkits are free-to-access and include articles, each written by an international group of experts. They have been developed in parallel in order to complement each other and to give relevant information and consistent information to their communities. These two toolkits offer individuals and organisations with practical guides, tools, expert information and answers to many questions - enabling their communities to thrive. This session will give a presentation of the two toolkits and also touches upon the lessons we have learned since the launch of the toolkits, challenges we faced along the way, their impact and future plans.

Empowering universities and researchers: Two practical toolkits for New-University-Presses and Open Access Book Publishing.

Exploring Open Access Books

A critical component in the development of sustainable funding models for OA is the ability to communicate impact to a diverse range of internal and external stakeholders. While traditional paywall publishers can use COUNTER reports to communicate usage to subscribing libraries, no similar standard exists for OA content.
This session presents the results of an innovative project that builds on existing COUNTER metrics to develop more flexible reporting. We’ll be sharing our understanding of who the stakeholders are, their differing needs for analytics, feedback on the reports shared, and lessons learned and areas for future research in this evolving area.

Next generation OA analytics: A partnership case Study

"The move towards a fully OA environment has moved from a theoretical conversation, to one with a deadline that those of us across Europe in particular saw at the beginning of 2021. Being faced with that deadline, the conversations about a sustainable delivery of OA have had to move from those theoretical one's focuses on challenges, opportunities and areas of development from the macro industry perspective, and now focus on the practical implications and the impact that these changes have and will continue to have on the workflows of those who are implementing the move to OA.

This session will therefore seek to focus on the details and explore what a transformative deal, one route of moving us towards a fully sustainable and engaged OA environment, looks like from the user workflow point of view. It will examine author workflow, with viewpoints from a publishing, librarian and solutions perspective. It will address topics such as author uptake and what can be done to support and increase this, work through case study examples of implementation and sustainable engagement going forward - addressing such questions as 'can we standardize transformative publishing deals?'

The goal is to make the panel interactive by asking questions of the audience as well as the panellists; therefore, getting multiple perspectives on a topic. The aim would be for participants to develop a clearer idea of the implications of transitioning to a fully OA environment, explore how to operationalize this, and see example models explored from the perspective of different stakeholder groups."

Smoothing the Path: An Examination of Managing Author Workflow in the OA transition

Leading vendors, such as Gale and ProQuest have been increasing their output in the provision of digital primary sources for years and this is an area of increasing strategic importance for them. The advantages to them are obvious, but what does this strategy mean for libraries?

For libraries with UDCs, typical strategy has long been to focus on the 'unique' aspect of our unique and distinctive collections. With the growth in digital primary sources however, we now need to consider the connection of such primary sources with the broader, vendor led sources on offer to us.

Based on the experience at Maynooth University, this paper will consider the changing market and the challenges and opportunities it brings for libraries and our users. And there are clear opportunities, but it may require a cognitive shift in how we, as curators regard our special collections. Where we have shown a focus on the 'unique' aspect of our unique and distinctive collections, will we now need to consider the connection of such primary sources with the broader, vendor led corpus on offer to us. If so, how will be bring cognate material together, and what does this mean for our institutional collection 'footprint'.

The changing face of primary sources

Jisc’s me Jisc’s members in the research community believe that digital archival collections (‘DACs’) are vital tools for research, deserving of parity with books and journals in the institution. Publishers spend much time and effort creating and distributing such DACs. Between the two, librarians value such collections but must acquire the best content they can and serve their scholars with limited budgets and competing demands. Paola Marchionni and Stephen Brooks will present findings from a number of recent research activities, including surveys and roundtable discussions, to highlight some of the issues Jisc members have found around the development and acquisition of DACs and present some of the initiatives Jisc has put in place to address these.

There are three people in this marriage”: Libraries, Researchers, Publishers, and the development of sustainable digital collections

In 2015 Jisc outlined the importance of funder metadata to support compliance checks and strengthen our negotiation position. This information is now a core requirement to supporting and evidencing a transition to OA but obtaining funder metadata remains a challenge. In this presentation representatives from three stakeholder groups will explain their experiences of addressing this data gap. This panel discussion will provide an update on sector progress since 2015 and how these developments can be applied more widely to resolve this ongoing issue within the next 5 years.

Minding the gap: divining OA opportunities through data

This year has been a tough one for the entire world, and in particular for the library community. Things have changed a lot on how services are managed and supplied. The Cambridge University Press has strived to work at its best for their customers and partners. This also in regard of metadata supply and distribution. This talk will show what it has been happening during this past year in terms of metadata creation, supply and distribution at the Cambridge University Press. We will show, new resources and how the Press adapted itself to the outside’s world changes.

Metadata creation and distribution during the pandemic

Ill-advised sharing on social media often harms more than just the sharer. In obliterating the distinction between private and public experience, social media has not only removed barriers that once protected individuals from the consequences of expressing themselves in self-destructive ways, it has also removed barriers that used to protect society from the spread of destructive ideas. But social media also allows for the rapid and extensive dissemination of good and sometimes life-saving information, while providing a platform for individuals to influence family and friends by modeling responsible behavior. 

Here, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll analyze social media’s always complex and ever-evolving cost-benefit calculus.

#Ebooksos scandal: the need for critical collection development

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The accidental publisher: the highs and lows of running an open journals service single-handedly

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#Ebooksos scandal: the need for critical collection development

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Next from UKSG Annual Conference 2021

The accidental publisher: the highs and lows of running an open journals service single-handedly

Similar lecture

Surviving (and thriving) during and after a pandemic

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

PRESENTATIONS

CONFERENCES

COMPANY

RESOURCES

Downloads