Years of Open Access

Stop, Look, Listen — Eight Lessons Learned From Eight Years of Open Access

Column Editor: Dr. Sven Fund (Managing Director, fullstopp GmbH, Society for Digitality, Wartburgstraße 25A, 10825 Berlin; Phone: +49 (0) 172 511 4899) <sven.fund@fullstopp.com> www.fullstopp.com

Abstract: Knowledge Unlatched (KU) was the first initiative to make monographs available Open Access in the Humanities and Social Sciences and has been offering annual pledging rounds since the pilot in 2013. The KU model has grown considerably in the meantime and has expanded to include journals and other categories. This article considers some key takeaways from the last eight years from an insider perspective, which should be of interest to publishers, libraries and research funding agencies, but also to comparable initiatives aiming to further develop their own approaches.

Keywords: Open Access; monographs; Knowledge Unlatched; scientific publishing; scholarly publishing; Humanities and Social Sciences.

Background

Free access to scientific information in the form of Open Access (OA) has been developing rapidly since the beginning of the 2000s. Especially in the early years, the natural sciences received the most attention, while other academic disciplines played a negligible role in the rapid development of OA. Frances Pinter, then a publisher and later Managing Director of Manchester University Press, felt that the lack of Open Access publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) was a central weakness of the model and one which needed to be addressed. As a result, she devised an approach in 2012 to make HSS content available Open Access, and that was unique at that time. In contrast to the APC model dominating scientific journals, in which individual articles are “bought free” by the authors or their research funding agencies/institutions, Pinter introduced a model based around institutional funding. At the core of what she later called Knowledge Unlatched (KU) was a collaboration by libraries all over the world who work together to finance making academic books freely available to all users, regardless of their location.

A pilot was launched in 2013 as a “proof of concept” exercise to gauge the willingness of libraries and publishers to support such a collective approach. Several well-established HSS publishers participated, and thanks to the collaboration of libraries worldwide, 28 new HSS books were made available OA at that time. Since then, a total of six pledging rounds have been realised and alongside the purely quantitative expansion, the model has also undergone considerable qualitative development.

Objective

In order to achieve KU’s entrepreneurial goal of making as much HSS content as possible available OA, various growth options were evaluated from 2015 onwards — once the model had been established. A central question was the (justified) concern that new models in the library market would be rapidly adopted necessary for the successful establishment of such a model might not be present among all stakeholders, particularly in the early phase of KU, when funding within libraries was often taken from special or leftover budgets.

In cooperation with libraries and publishers, two approaches have been tested: alongside quantitative growth (i.e., more titles in the respective pledging rounds), KU created a virtual marketplace in order to offer more variety in collections and models. The rationale for this was based on the observation that a strong increase in the number of titles in the core model “KU Select” would almost inevitably lead to a greater segregation among participating libraries. It was clear that the funds made available for OA monographs would not be enough to even begin to finance the range of titles that publishers could offer. At the same time, it was assumed that the larger academic institutions would probably be those most willing and economically able to support several simultaneous offers.

It also became apparent early on that packages with little differentiation (i.e., numerous publishers contributing titles from a wide range of disciplines to an overall package) would be of limited relevance. This followed the insight that libraries would not completely change their decision-making and acquisition behavior in a short time, even if this were now to take the form of a funding commitment for OA content. Parallel discussions with publishers revealed that they often had an interest in “opening” certain disciplines more than others. This was primarily due to publishing strategies and pressure from editorial boards and authors. Thanks to the cooperation with Language Science Press (LSP) in 2017, KU was able to test, at an early stage, an entire publishing program that could be offered OA. This case study with LSP, KU’s first publishing partner, proved to be a pioneer that would lead to various other models. As of 2019, 15 different partner models have been introduced by KU and libraries worldwide, based on a variety of approaches.

Marketplace as a Core Strategy

The concept of a marketplace for OA models also includes other components, however. There was an early strategic goal to be able to finance HSS journals via KU similar to the way in which the Open Library of Humanities works. It was clear, though, that such a model would require a significant departure by a small group of enthusiasts but that the broader acceptance

from the APC model prevalent in the STEM field, which had developed under very different funding conditions.

In addition, early discussions with providers of OA infrastructures showed that these also had funding requirements which could additionally be built into the marketplace idea where appropriate. continued on page 62

In the further development of KU into an OA marketplace, it was paramount that the core mission of KU, namely the collaboration of institutions worldwide, should not change. On the contrary, this key element of the model, namely the role of librarians in the selection of content, should be further strengthened.

Eight Lessons from Eight Years

The intensive work with OA and the systematic development of test cases has helped KU to draw some key lessons for its endeavours in a rapidly developing and changing environment of scholarly publishing: 1. Community Action Works — According to the classic schools of business administration, it is by no means a given that collective action by stakeholders around the world can function in a coordinated manner. Obviously, there are several coordination issues, but KU has proven that over 600 libraries and more than 100 publishers worldwide can create a stable ecosystem that has enabled the financing of around 2,000 OA books and 46 journals to date. The collective funding over the last eight years amounts to approximately ten million euros.

On both the supply and the demand side, there has been a high proportion of participants in several pledging rounds.

The participation of libraries today is just as much driven by the individual profile of the institution as is the case with the traditional acquisition of paid content — a clear difference from the early days when institutions were often driven more by idealistic reasons to participate rather than investing in content relevant for their researchers. 2. Open Access is Multilingual — The model started as an initiative for purely English-language monographs, but it has since grown to include German and French language content, which libraries have been able to fund via KU.

There were initial concerns that the far smaller number of libraries interested in non-English content would not be enough to raise the level of funding necessary for books in other languages, but it has been proven that such a goal can also be achievable. With packages such as the political science program of the German publisher transcript, or with the OpenEdition initiative in France, successful non-English-language models have launched. In the case of transcript, it has even been possible to renew the model in the following years and thus to establish a longer-term sustainable publishing model. 3. Ongoing Specialization — At the same time, the example of the original KU model (which today goes by the name “KU Select”) shows that models with broader thematic content are also undergoing changes and becoming more specialized. Last year, for example, the collection was already streamlined to primarily include titles from those disciplines with a high degree of usage — a decision unanimously welcomed by librarians. Increased specialization should also help institutions to more easily flip their current holdings and to reduce complexity in the face of greater demand. 4. Growing Importance of Proof of Success — Faced with a growing range of OA initiatives and products, it can be observed that libraries are significantly more interested in seeing measurable effects than in the early days. While support for some initiatives was first motivated by a high degree of idealism and political goodwill, institutionally funded OA is increasingly developing into a form of acquisition that must be able to compete with other models. This poses certain challenges for OA providers, especially with an access model where decentralized storage and use of content is an integral part of the approach. Obviously, users of such OA models do not have to use an institutional (and thus easily measurable) access route to the content, meaning that proof of use within the IP range of an institution alone is of limited value. It can be observed that libraries — as well as publishers — often make their decisions regarding the support of OA collections or the publication of content based on usage and citation statistics. With the portal KU Open Analytics, there is now a solution that consolidates the usage from almost two dozen platforms and can provide valuable insight into the use of open content. The data can also include location-based usage from outside of the institutional IP range. 5. Hosting Gains in Importance — The decentralized structures inherent in OA are increasingly reaching their limits, as the example of usage reporting above shows. In view of the growing amount of openly available content and the need for a minimum level of efficiency and thus organization, this decentralization is coming under increasing pressure. KU’s surveys of libraries suggested at the start of 2019 that a common hosting platform for OA content (at least for books) would be desirable. The Open Research Library (www.openreserachlibrary.org), which has been online since the middle of last year, is KU’s reaction to this wish. 6. Timing is Central — KU has made several attempts over the past few years to identify the optimal time for the launch of its offers — and to accomplish this in a global context in which budget years and practices vary significantly. Not surprisingly, the optimal timeframe fits into the traditional ordering behavior of libraries worldwide. Attempts by publishers to offer products to the market at a later or earlier date have so far seen limited success. It therefore seems advisable to launch new products in the second quarter of the calendar year in order to secure financing in the following two quarters.

7. Collaboration with Trade Partners Yields Mixed

Results — KU has been working with resellers since 2016, and the number of trade partners is now into double figures and growing. While it could be assumed that such partners would generally be very important intermediaries in institutional OA, experience so far has been mixed. Some resellers, especially in the German-speaking countries, have proven to be highly useful partners due to their customer knowledge and sales expertise, while others have proven to be more of a distraction from efficient processes. The dependence on individual resellers by libraries is often high, but the institutional knowledge of the book trade about OA is usually limited. 8. Different Access Models for STEM Books — In KU’s experience, OA books from the STEM disciplines seem to fall more in line with the practices of the APC-based journal business. Decision-making processes within institutions

Column Editor: Thomas W. Leonhardt (Retired, Eugene, OR 97404) <oskibear70@gmail.com>

Being of a certain age, I’ve taken to reading the local obituaries. I find myself interested less in what people did for a living than what they did for fun and relaxation, especially in retirement. The typical, often-occurring activities include, attending athletic events, golfing, traveling, camping, gardening, baking, and bowling. I’ll see almost everything imaginable but rarely do I see any reference to reading and none at all to books. And then that rare occurrence, interspersed among other activities — “She liked to read.” What better endorsement for a life well led! But is it?

Reading seems a simple skill learned so early in life that it may be taken for granted and not even thought of as a skill. But reading is more than a skill; it is a knowledge-foundation on which we build other skills. Language is the real foundation but books and journals — the written and printed word — is the permanent record of humankind’s accomplishments and wonderments. Fiction, too, plays an important a role in our well-being as a species. And reading is much more than this because it is such a personal pursuit that it can be a spiritual, mystical, transformative experience.

She liked to read? What does that mean? Read what? Reading matter comes in a myriad of forms — newspapers, magazines, political flyers, advertisements imposed on any and every available surface, cereal boxes, and even digitally produced words that appear on my computer screen. And books. When I think of reading, I think of books, so when I see, that is, read, that some recently deceased person liked to read, I become curious about what she liked to read. It doesn’t matter, some would say, and at one level (reading is better than vegetating before a flickering screen), it doesn’t, but I want to know more about the person’s intellectual interests that spurred the interest in reading.

If the obituary author is not a reader, then someone who reads only the daily newspaper would be a reader by comparison. My father, in that sense, was a reader back when morning and afternoon papers were delivered to our house (he subscribed to both). He did have a small collection of books that followed him wherever the Army sent him — Lee’s Lieutenants, The Foxes of Harrow, Kitty Foyle, Apartment in Athens, and some whose titles I’ve forgotten — and yet I never saw him reading a book. I would not call my dad a reader. I don’t know what he thought about my reading habit of seventy plus years, a habit I have never tried to break, but I can hear my mother even now complaining that I always had my nose in a book. Not true, but I did read a lot and thus stood out in my family. In my defense, I was always among the first to turn out for a pickup baseball game. And I didn’t forgo a dance at the teen club to finish the Studs Lonigan trilogy. You don’t have to be a hermit to like reading.

An obituary that merely mentions reading is not enough. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I want my relationship with reading and books reduced to “He liked to read.” As Nero Wolfe would say, “Pfui!!” There’s more to it than that.

My obituary would need to be at least the length of a chapbook to express my long-term relationship to the printed word,

especially on the pages of books going back to the time my parents invested in a set of books, sixteen slim volumes still in my possession, that began with nursery rhymes and folk tales and that ended with excerpts from established children’s books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. My father was overseas or in distant Army bases during the first seven years of my life but I have a faint image of him reading about Goldilocks, the Three Billy Goats Gruff, and the Tale of Peter Rabbit. By the time kindergarten came, I was feeling an urge to read the stories myself. Because the illustrations accompanying all of the stories were so inviting, I was especially eager to read the stories that my father had not read to me.

My chapbook reading biography includes my gratitude for the Dick and Jane readers for giving me the confidence to advance to comic books that when read aloud, impressed relatives at family reunions. My chapbook would have to include my affinity for and use of Army Post Libraries and school libraries from California and Alaska to Germany, both as a dependent and as a soldier. I knew that people bought books because my grandmother would send me Whitman reprints of Tom Sawyer and others, straight out of a dime store, but it never occurred to me to buy a book, even one costing only a quarter because a quarter would buy a comic book, two candy bars, and a Coke. Besides, the libraries that I had access to had more books than the dime store.

Of the hundreds of books I have read, I can see patterns that reflect a phase of my life. Interests come and go and they came and went. I am no longer interested in reading disorders, not enough to read about them, or about psycholinguistics and deep structure, although there was a time I thought it was the most fascinating subject I’d ever come across.

There would have to be a section about German literature in the original and how certain books had me thinking in German by the time I’d finished them: Buddenbrooks; Die Zauberberg; Die Blechtrommel; Die Blendung; and Berlin: Alexanderplatz. These are lengthy novels that transported me far beyond the realm of liking to read.

Reading begets re-reading begets multiple editions of books: The Grapes of Wrath (6 ); Two Years Before the Mast (9 ); Casuals of the Sea (10 ); and Parnassus on Wheels (7). There are several other books and authors that I keep on my shelves to re-read as the mood strikes me, authors who have become old friends: W.W. Jacobs, John Steinbeck, William McFee, Frank Waters, Christopher Morley, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, and Wright Morris, the only one of my favorites I was privileged to meet and have supper with. I did have lunch with Lawrence Ferlinhetti and I do like A Coney Island of the Mind, but I don’t rank him with the others. I do, however, own a copy of The Portable Beat Reader that contains 19 pages dedicated to the still-living owner of City Lights Bookstore. continued on page 64

and the willingness of publishers to make significant titles from their programs available via cooperative models seem less suitable for institutional funding models. Although

KU has been able to report some positive cases, the cost-benefit ratio in general does not seem to be reasonable. Outlook

Open Access models for monographs have developed dynamically and, in terms of results, very positively since KU’s foundation. Numerous stakeholders and research funding agencies continue to look for ways to further develop institutionally funded OA. The basis for this positive development has been the willingness and ability of all participants to continually make necessary adjustments to its implementation. Institutional OA is thus developing very successfully, but it requires a much higher degree of adaptability compared with other business and access models within scientific publishing.

It is to be expected that OA offers such as those from KU will continue to develop in popularity, both from the demand and the supply side. Many publishers are actively interested in expanding the number of titles openly available to users everywhere and have largely overcome their initial concerns. In order to increase the share of OA books in the output of publishers in a timely and reliable manner, the sustainability of reliable financing is crucial. Publishers must ensure that they consider — and fulfil — the growing service requirements of libraries, who now see OA content as a normal part of their service, and thus as an integral part of their acquisition and financing structure.

References

Fund, Sven; Mosterd, Max; Godek, Piotr (2019): Open Access Monographs in the UK: A data analysis, Berlin, retrieved 2020-03-22, https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2019/Fullstopp-Final-October-2019.pdf.

Montgomery, Lucy (2014): Knowledge Unlatched: A Global Library Consortium for Funding Open Access Scholarly Books, in: Journal of Cultural Science, Vol. 7, No, 2, pp. 1-28.

Oregon Trails from page 63

In Black Boy by Richard Wright, there’s a telling exchange:

“Boy, are you reading for the law? My aunt would demand.

“No.”

“Then why are you reading all the time?”

“I like to.”

If you read the entire Black Boy, you will discover that Wright’s “I like to read” is more than that. Reading allows Wright to begin a new life, a life of the mind, a writer’s life.

Contrast Wright, with an unnamed associate of A. Edward

The Sun Shining in the Middle of the Night: How Moving Beyond IP Authentication Does Not Spoil the Fun, Ease,

or Privacy of Accessing Library Resources — Presented by Andrew Nagy (EBSCO), Michelle Colquitt (Gwinnett Technical College Library) — https://sched.co/UZSC

Reported by John Banionis (Villanova University) <john.banionis@villanova.edu>

This session opened with Nagy providing an overview of OpenAthens, which instead of anonymous IP-based authentication leverages an identity-based SAML solution, allowing for usage data collection categorized by defined user groups. Single Sign-On (SSO) adoption was the primary goal of the NISO working group RA21, now followed by the successor NISO working group called Seamless Access. Colquitt discussed her experience in leading the transition to OpenAthens at Gwinnett Technical College as an initiative of the GALILEO consortium. Preparations ran from August to December 2018, including a GALILEO Local Resources Integration, Alma integrations, and continuous communications to the user community, ultimately resulting in a smooth transition at the end of December. OpenAthens has provided additional reporting functionality, though per GALILEO standards, only minimal user attributes were shared with vendors by default unless the additional data was to be used for local reporting customizations. Colquitt’s successful experience with launching OpenAthens at Gwinnett Technical College also led her to a new position as Resource Management Librarian at Georgia Gwinnett College. (The session’s slides can be found in Sched.)

That’s all the reports we have room for in this issue. Watch for more reports from the 2019 Charleston Conference in upcoming issues of Against the Grain. Presentation material (PowerPoint slides, handouts) and taped session links from many of the 2019 sessions are available online. Visit the Conference Website at

www.charlestonlibraryconference.com. — KS Newton as described in The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections:

“I asked a man what he did with his leisure, and his reply was, ‘I play cards. I used to read a good deal but I wanted something to occupy my mind, so I took to cards.’ It was a disconcerting answer.”

Yes, a disconcerting answer but one that suggests that playing cards in the society of others is superior to sitting home alone in your favorite chair, a soft lamp illuminating the pages of your book and you far away in some world of another person’s making.

I suggest, and I know without doubt, that I am not alone, that there is room in our lives to participate in society and enjoy it without surrendering a private, rich, inner life of reading. So if the author of your obituary doesn’t know and really couldn’t know what moves you to read and what reading moves you and stimulates you and provides you solace when nothing else does, it seems okay to state: “He liked to read.”