NASIG 2016

Access to scholarly journals produced by commercial publishers is becoming more and more expensive, and open access to publicly-funded research results is increasingly mandated by funding bodies.  In response to these and other motivators, the open access scholarly journal movement is growing.  In the Canadian context, open access publishing has begun to get more traction in response to these factors, and in spite of some resistance by researchers.  University and college libraries are getting involved in both the promotion and the creation of open access content.  An example of this is the University of Lethbridge Journal Incubator,  which publishes three open access journals from the University Library.  We will explore some of the benefits and drawbacks of open access in scholarly communications. 

 

One model of open access is the hybrid journal, which causes particular challenges for discovery and access.  With access restricted at the article, rather than the journal level, it's surprisingly hard to get library users to OA content through catalogs, link resolvers, or even discovery tools. Chris will investigate some of the roadblocks and consult with publishers, librarians, and service providers to see what is currently being done to overcome this challenge. Are readers currently getting to OA content in hybrid journals through library systems and sites? Is the NISO License and Access Indicators Recommended Practice likely to change current practices? How are discovery tool vendors responding to this challenge? Can service providers outside of the traditional library content and software sector have an impact? After investigating all of these angles Chris will try to determine if there is a likely way forward and share what attendees can do to improve access to Hybrid OA journals in the short and long term.