Why support the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?

1. Why support the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? ICOLC Conference Stockholm, October 2007 Lars Björnshauge, Director of Libraries Lund University

2. What is DOAJ: • A collection of peer reviewed open access journals • Scope: All disciplines – all languages • Provides metadata harvesting services based on the OAI-PMH protocol for libraries and other service providers • Provides search service for end-users • Services for authors & publishers

3. Selection criteria • Open Access • no embargo! • Quality control measures, • the journal must exercise peer-review or editorial quality control in order to be included in the DOAJ. • Scientific or scholarly content • Researcher as primary target group

4. Purpose of the DOAJ: • making it easier for • aggregators & libraries to integrate OA-journals data in their services • OA-publishers to get their journals visible • readers to find OA-material • authors to find a journal to publish in OA

5. Number of journals listed in the DOAJ • May 2003: 300 • November 2003: 558 • May 2004: 1097 • November 2004: 1345 • May 2005: 1601 • November 2005: 1905 • May 2006: 2230 • November 2006: 2450 • May 2007: 2700 • October 2007 2850

6. The Editorial Process (simplified) DOAJ Editorial work: check against criteria, communication with journal owner etc., check for compliance, remove uncompliant journals etc Suggestions Lists, blogs etc

7. Using DOAJ for harvesting Metadata Serviceprovider: Commercial aggregator, OpenURL-provider Library (OPAC and/or ERM) Harvesting/fetching metadata OAI-PMH or other protocols DOAJ

10. Using DOAJ for searching/browsing User search Full text Full text DOAJ Redirect Journal Journal Journal Journal Journal web sites + 500.000 redirects per month

11. Impact so far • Global visibility and dissemination of records • Integrated in OPAC´s in many, many libraries • Several service providers are harvesting from DOAJ • Integrated in the services of aggregators (Serial Solutions, Swets, Ebsco, OVID etc.) • and OpenURL-providers (Exlibris etc.) • Frequently referred to as the most important listing • Among the top 3 of referring sites for OA-journals

12. Composition of the DOAJ Journals June 2007: 10 Publishers with 10+ Journals 24 Publishers with 5+ Journals 1906 Publishers with 1 Journal! 2044 Publishers in total as of June 2007! Journals from in 82 countries +40 Languages

16. Providing tools for journals to enable them to provide OAI-compliant article level metadata

17. Cooperation with INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications) Working with journals from developing countries

19. Cooperation with SPARC Europé:Certification programme for Open Access Journals • Seal of Approval for Open Access Journals: • Explicit re-use policies (CC-licences) • Ability to provide XML-metadata on article level • Provision of usage statistics • Preservation policy • Allow storage of full-text • Allow data- and/or text-mining To be launched this month!

20. Long Term Archiving Initial discussions with the Royal Library of the Netherlands (KB) concerning provision of full-text of DOAJ-journals for long term archiving

21. DOAJ Membership Benefits • Acknowledgement as a DOAJ Member on the DOAJ Membership Pages, including link to member institution homepage. • Quarterly newsletters • Access to the list of recently added titles • Access to list of removed titles • Subscription to e-mail list for DOAJ members • The right to use the DOAJ membership in marketing activities • Discount on participation in next years LUND Conference, April 21st- 23nd, 2008 – www.lub.lu.se/ncsc

22. Membership Categories and yearly membership Fees • Individuals: Euro 100 • Libraries, Universities, Research Centers: Euro 400 • Library Consortia, Library Associations: Euro 4.000 • Aggregators and other Service Providers: Euro 5.000 • Supporter: Euro (whatever) • Members as of October 2007: • 40+ Universities/Research Centers, • 6 Consortia • 1 Aggregator • 17 different countries

23. Libraries & the Open Access Movement • The two drivers for the Open Access Movement • The Serials Crisis , accelerating price increases – librarians raised the issue, university decision makers listened • Technology – early adaptors (techies & researchers, OAI etc.) • Libraries heavily involved in the early stages (BOAI, Berlin Declaration etc.)

24. Funding of Open Access Services • The Green Road (self-archiving/IR): • Initated & driven by libraries • Funded by universities/research centers • Infrastructure • driven by libraries, funded by project grants (Sherpa/Romeo – OpenDOAR) – sustainability??

25. Funding of Open Access Services • The Golden Road (Open Access Journals): • Business model: • Publication charges (BMC, PLoS etc.) • In kind support (the usual model) • One off donations (PLoS) • Membership programmes (BMC, PLoS) • Infrastructure • DOAJ – funding?? sustainability??

26. The funding history of DOAJ • 2003-2005: • Project grants from Open Society Institute, The National Library of Sweden, SPARC, SPARC Europé • in kind support form Lund University (Library Head Office) • 2005-2006: • A few sponsorships • in kind support form Lund University (Library Head Office) • 2007 • Several sponsorships • in kind support form Lund University (Library Head Office) • Membership Program launched February 2007

27. Aggregator services • Libraries are paying for services from • Publishers • Subscription agents * • Federated search service providers * • OpenURL-solution providers * • DOAJ has functionality in common with publisher services, services from subscription agents • * = are harvesting data from or use data from DOAJ

28. What library consortia & libraries can do: • LIbrary Consortia: • provide funding for membership programmes, • liaise with funding agencies re. publications charges • support infrastructure services • Libraries: • Integrate open access documents in their services (OPACs, portals, etc.) thus giving exposure, generating usage & impact DOAJ facilitates just that! Directly & indirectly via aggregators

29. Consider this • During the recent years numbers of university presidents, rectors associations, research funding agencies and even governments has declared its support to declarations such as the Berlin Declaration, issued recommendations to support development of institutional repositories and encouraged researchers to publish in Open Access journals.

30. Consider even this • The commercial publishers are lobbying intensively against Open Access via their organisations such as the STM publishers • This is the case of the NIH mandate in the United States. • In EU officials are bombarded by phone calls from publishers every single day. • The recent PRISM initiative is another example.

31. and this • The Open Access Movement was triggered by a number of things, among those the serials crisis. • Library Consortia have done a lot to keep price increases down, but never the less prices increase more than the average inflation rates. • Who are paying for the lobbying done by commercial publishers? • We are, you are, the libraries and our consortia!

32. A quick calculation • A medium sized academic library pays a yearly license fee to the worlds largest publisher of approximately Euro 500.000 • Consider paying Euro 400 – this is less than 1/10 of one percent of what you pay to that publisher. • Note that this library pays approximately Euro 125.000 to the shareholders of that company • Consider paying less than 1/3 of one percent of what you pay to the shareholders of that publisher – and thus contribute to the continuation of a highly valued service for the Open Access Movement

33. Statements in support of the DOAJ Membership Programme • Peter Suber: ”Every institution that supports open access or researchers who support open access should support the DOAJ. I hope you will consider joining its membership program”. • LIBER President Hans Geleijnse: ”The Directory of Open Access Journals is an important service for researchers and their libraries.”As President of LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, I would like to recommend libraries to support this work”.

34. Summary of forthcoming review in a well-known library journal (October 2007) • DOAJ • is a significant resource. • has developed a well-deserved reputation for quality, • is the world’s most authoritative list of fully open access, peer-reviewed titles. • the title list is very impressive • is growing dramatically. • the service provided by is so obviously important • the membership fees are such an incredible bargain, that it seems highly likely that ongoing economic security will be a reality for DOAJ in the not too distant future. • libraries, consortia, universities and research centres should consider membership; • vendors serving the library community are well advised to consider DOAJ membership or sponsorship.

36. Thank you for your attention! …… and for your support! All credits to the DOAJ team: Anna-Lena Johansson, Sonja Brage, Ingela Wahlgren & Salam Baker Shanawa www.doaj.org lars.bjornshauge@lub.lu.se

37. Summary of forthcoming review in a well-known library journal (October 2007) • DOAJ • is a significant resource. • has developed a well-deserved reputation for quality, • is the world’s most authoritative list of fully open access, peer-reviewed titles. • the title list is very impressive • is growing dramatically. • the service provided by is so obviously important • the membership fees are such an incredible bargain, that it seems highly likely that ongoing economic security will be a reality for DOAJ in the not too distant future. • libraries, consortia, universities and research centres should consider membership; • vendors serving the library community are well advised to consider DOAJ membership or sponsorship.