With the accelerated push to an "open science future" in the last five years, the mixed-model economy dominating publisher/library discussions gets more complex and yet more reductive with each new model launched. As the ecosystem gets more complex, resource-strapped publishers and libraries are seeking new ways to evaluate the benefits of new models -- often resorting to reductive proxies. Many libraries publicly avow commitments to mission-aligned, transparent, equitable models but recoil at changes in pricing or services that enable that kind of investment. Are reductive, transactional conversations around proxies like "cost-per-article" the only means for evaluating "value" in an open science/open access context?
This panel discussion aims to provocatively delve into this question through the lens of non-profit publisher and librarian perspectives -- organizations that are mission-driven and yet also resource constrained.
Tuesday February 11, 2025 1:30pm - 2:45pm EST
Laurel CD
The scholarly communications ecosystem has reached a tipping point where the value of open access (OA) content needs to be better measured and articulated by all stakeholders, including librarians, publishers, funders, and researchers. Research and educational organizations seek reliable means to assess their spending in support of OA. Funders need to demonstrate the benefits of the research projects they support.Publishers, meanwhile, seek to assess how organizations engage with their publications in key subject areas. These assessments must be credible, consistent, and comparable, echoing the principles established by COUNTER, but they should also help tell a story with data. What is missing from our industry is a recommended practice designed specifically to address the multi-faceted analysis needs of open access content.
This panel will introduce the current landscape of open access reporting, including the development and evolution of COUNTER Metrics, the COUNTER API (formerly SUSHI), and other reporting strategies used to assess OA usage. Following this introduction, the panel will facilitate a group discussion with the goal of identifying reporting gaps and opportunities to generate and communicate socially, financially, and academically meaningful metrics. Particular emphasis will be paid to the necessary metadata required to generate robust data for analysis.
Tuesday February 11, 2025 3:15pm - 4:30pm EST
Laurel CD
Over the past several years, libraries have been increasingly aware of threats posed to patron data privacy by the abundance of collection, storage, and sharing technologies used by vendor e-resource platforms. Compounding the problem is the vague, opaque, often confusing privacy language in vendor contracts, ranging from complex data processing addenda to linked privacy policies and third-party terms of use. Too often, this language serves to limit or nullify the data privacy protections that libraries try to implement. In response to these concerns, SPARC’s Privacy & Surveillance Contract Language Working Group is developing a range of practical tools to help libraries negotiate agreements that support the needs of users and protect their personal data. These tools include a negotiation guide for librarians focusing on privacy protections; a data privacy addendum with clear expectations for vendors on handling of library patron data (with vendor feedback from the pilot stage); as well as comprehensive reports on the data privacy practices of multinational vendors such as Elsevier and Springer. This session will give an overview of the group’s work in this area, with time for a robust Q&A about data privacy and surveillance in digital libraries.
Wednesday February 12, 2025 9:00am - 10:15am EST
Laurel CD
Even as the discourse around OA gets more diversified globally, it remains in its nascent stages in developing countries like India. One of the major factors for this is a lack of financial structures, or in other words, a lack of a clear vision of the stakeholders of research publications – who should be paying for OA? Consequently, many geographies are unable to participate in the knowledge creation and dissemination potential of OA, and remain passive absorbers of content created by others. Even though OA is a global phenomenon, the creation and sustenance of OA structures remains largely rooted in local economies and cultural attitudes. All these factors lead to a reproduction of monopolies over knowledge systems which OA was meant to break. We consume information from knowledge hubs which have the resources and tools available to create OA structures while indigenous cultures and knowledge systems remain limited to their local environs. Such a one-way routing of knowledge even threatens their erasure over time.
We would like to engage in a discussion about the indigenous, geography-specific OA structures and solutions that have come up and how such systems are being sustained and scaled.
Wednesday February 12, 2025 10:45am - 12:00pm EST
Laurel CD
