The Role of the Librarian in an Open Access World

1. The Role of the Librarian in an Open Access World Ellen Finnie Duranceau Scholarly Publishing & Licensing Consultant MIT Libraries BioMed Central Consultation Workshop 5/21/07

3. MIT Librarians & Open Access: Outline • Context and Mission • The view from 3,000 feet: • New activities • New positions • Implications

4. MIT Context: Culture of Openness • Commitment to “generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges.” • Mission directly related to widest dissemination • Expressions of this culture • OpenCourseWare • Dspace • W3C • Free Software Movement

5. Current (2003): The mission of the MIT libraries is to create and sustain an intuitive,trustedinformation environment that enables learning and the advancement of knowledge at MIT. We are committed to developing strategies and systems that promote discovery and facilitate worldwide scholarly communication. 1999: The MIT Libraries are creative partners in the research and learning process. We select, organize, present, and preserve information resources relevant to education and research at MIT. We sustain these world-class resources and provide quality services …. We build intellectual connections among these resources and educate the MIT community in the effective use of information. We want to be the place people in the MIT communitythink of first when they need information. MIT Libraries’ Mission:Evolution with Open Access

6. Key Changes In How We Describe Mission • Creating and sustaining a trusted information environment • Developing strategies and systems that • promote discovery • facilitate worldwide scholarly communication • Consistent with OA world

7. New Activities

8. Facilitate Worldwide Scholarly Communication: IRs, Hosting Content • Institutional repository: Dspace • Beginning of shift from libraries purchasing content toward libraries offering their institution’s content to the world • Efforts in development, marketing, metadata, workflows • Hosting content: • Supporting publication/archiving of open access journal within libraries: partnership with faculty • Exploring archiving partnership with university press • Preprint site: partnership with faculty • Creating and managing digital collections

9. Facilitate Worldwide Scholarly Communication: Authors’ rights • New support for authors in relation to rights • Publishing choices • Publishing agreements • Posting to optimize citation, dissemination • Partner with intellectual property counsel, intellectual property committee • Partner with sponsored research (funder requirements)

10. Facilitate Worldwide Scholarly Communication: Influencing Purchasing & Business Models • No single model to support in near term: variety of roles • Maintaining advocacy for Fair Use principles; push back on DRM, restrictive licenses and purchase models • Exploring value based pricing • License negotiation and standards • SERU / NISO • Support/initiate dialog with campus administration • Analysis of business/cost models in OA arena • Partnering with administration • Funder requirements • Partnering with sponsored research

11. Strategies and Systems that Promote Discovery • Evaluating, developing, investing in value-added discovery & delivery tools, especially open source tools • Looking at: • Data mining & analysis • Social software • Filtering, aggregating tools • Metadata Creation and Management • Looking at: • Author name mapping • Version identification and linking • User generated content

12. Create and Sustain Trusted Information Environment • Define, evaluate, invest in qualified archiving solutions • Concept of Trusted Archive • Portico, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS • IRs • Create, Identify, Store metadata on trusted archive for digital content • title or even article level

13. Create and Sustain Trusted Information Environment • Teaching / Instruction • Evaluating sources • Using discovery tools to best advantage • Integration with courses / online tutorials • Partnerships with faculty • Developing software tools that meet social networking [trust] needs • Betas page http://libraries.mit.edu/help/betas/ • Open source sharing among libraries/universities

14. New Positions

15. New/changed librarian positions since Budapest OA Initiative • Role expansion seen in new positions • From 2002-2007 • 14 librarian positions redefined (roughly 20%) • Headcount repurposed, not increased, except: • 2 new FTEs added • 0.5 FTE funded by provost

16. Position changes in MIT Libraries: 21st century Librarian Roles • Research Group – new group (2002+) • Design and develop tools to support discovery • New vision of role of librarian on campus: research partner, innovator • Partnerships with CS department, Information Services • Images librarian (2003) • GIS librarian (c 2004) • Train in GIS tools, support GIS service – purchase only part of picture • Data librarian / social sciences focus (c2004) • Offer access to & support for data sets, whether OA or purchased

17. Position changes in MIT Libraries: 21st century Librarian Roles • Changes in traditional subject specialist role: beyond ‘collection development’ in a subject discipline • Computer science: add interactive research component, working with faculty to operationalize research (2005) • Add internet tools development specialty (2005) • Add intensive instruction component, working with faculty to devise online course-based tutorials (2006) • Civil & Env. eng., add GIS responsibilities (c2005) • Associate head, engineering library, refocus from circ/access to outreach program (2006) • All changes are relevant to OA world

18. Position changes in MIT Libraries: 21st century Librarian Roles • Information services librarian for engineering & science (2005) • Deemphasize ‘collections’ and even ‘reference’ – focus on services, tools • Metadata specialist (2005) • Support OA activities like MIT’s OpenCourseWare • Participate in campus-wide initiatives related to digital content, not purchased content • Digital products manager (2005) • Build new systems, particularly for more open access to theses • Scholarly publishing consultant (2006) • Support author rights, goal of making MIT’s research more widely available • Partner with institutional research, sponsored research, univ. press, faculty, sponsored research • Dspace [IR] product manager (2007) • Promote use of OA repository and develop features • Associate director, collection services/ change to include systems management (2007) • Beyond building collections: systems, services, technology in relation to content

19. Implications

20. Role of Librarian in Open Access World: Expanding, Deepening • Fundamentals don’t change • Support university in mission of “generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge” • Move toward OA has led to new, deepened partnerships on campus • Sponsored research • Institutional research • Intellectual property • University press • Faculty • Information services • Partners in facilitating worldwide scholarly communication in a trusted information environment • Librarians more at the center of the campus than when our gateways and collections were the only game in town

21. Librarian’s Role in OA World? • “I thought the faculty committee on the library system would be three years of dry drudgery. But it turns out librarians in their new role are now located at the center of the most contentious and important issues of the day.” --faculty member, 2007