Change and library policies & procedures

[heatherm@eln.bc.ca]

With apologies for cross-posting (to the ACRL Scholarly Communications
Task Force, Liblicense, CACUL-L, and the SPARC Open Access Forum):

Sally Morris of ALPSP has raised one of the concerns of publishers with
moving into open access:  a fear that libraries will cancel journals if
publishers proceed with the very changes that we librarians have been
asking them to make of recent years.  Our last exchange on this topic can
be found in the SPARC Open Access Forum at:  
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/2076.html

It seems to me that just as publishers, faculty, university
administrators, and funding agencies need to change their policies and
procedures, so too do libraries.  As, indeed, many libraries are changing,
developing institutional repositories, purchasing memberships in open
access publishing ventures, even publishing and/or hosting journals.

One area that I think would be particularly helpful is for libraries to
reassess their collections policies.  At the very least, an interim policy
calling for careful consideration before cancelling any quality,
reasonably priced journal that is moving to open access (which could cause
a decrease in usage statistics for the publisher's own version).

In the long term, can we develop collections policies which reflect that
libraries need to collaboratively develop a collection to be shared by the
world, policies which reflect that collectively, library budgets are one
of the key supports for the scholarly communications system?  While this
approach differs from our traditional focus on our own library's users,
ultimately this is the approach that serves the best interests of all -
including our own patrons.

Here is one tip on library action, from the ACRL Scholarly Communications
Toolkit:

Recognize and support open access journals, repositories, and other
publisher experiments

Does anyone have any examples of revised library policies reflecting a
transition to an open access environment, or thoughts on what this might
look like?

cheers,

Heather G. Morrison