HSLG: session 1 Arne Jakobson on Open Access
Bernard Barrett opened the 4th conference of IHLG, saying, in introducing the first session on open access that it was up to us to change things.
Mary Burke of UCD chaired the session and referred to the words of the Budapest declaration on open access on combining old traditions and new technology. She introduced Arne Jakobson, President of EAHIL. Arne spoke on open access and institutional repositories (IRs). EAHIL supports both, he said, but he was going to concentrate on IRs
He referred to the Budapest and Berlin statements, and to RCUK's, though also to the controversial Royal Society statement. He gave some figures on numbers of IRs based on ePrints' Registry of Open Access Archives, , OAIster and OpenDOAR.
He introduced the audience to the distinction between pre- and post-prints. He listed a number of benefits of IRs:
- increased visibility of an institution's research
- no delay
- better availability
- secure and sustainable storage
Libraries are the natural hosts for IRs; storage and software costs are low. The challenges are cultural.
Arne then illustrated his point by describing the development of the Oslo repository, DUO. They will require all postgraduate theses to be submitted electronically from 2007. For electronic journal articles they have a sister project, FRIDA, and deposit is mandatory for scientific staff. Nationally they have NORA, the Norwegian Open Research Archive.
He concluded that a strategic plan was important, and that it was difficult to change scientists' and postgraduates' behaviour.
Questions: who adds metadata? Arne said that researchers do so on submission, using a simplified set of subject headings
What abut peer review? Items in FRIDA are peer-reviewed by definition, because they all post-prints.
What's the biggest block to compliance? Researchers' time is short and workload heavy. Arne is considering offering financial incentives for submission. Funding bodies are not yet insisting on deposit in IRs.
Citation counts? The database will contain citation to journals. It's clear open access increases visibility.
Which is better, a top down or bottom up approach? "Everywhere", replied Arne.
