THE VALUE OF CROSSREF IN AN OPEN ACCESS WORLD

1. THE VALUE OF CROSSREF IN AN OPEN ACCESS WORLD Frederick J. Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication University College London f.friend@ucl.ac.uk

2. USER NEEDS AND THE OPPORTUNITY THOSE NEEDS OPEN UP • The need users of academic journals have for key-word access to the whole corpus of journal literature, both subscription-based and open access content • The opportunity CrossRef may have to develop such a service in a public-private partnership • Students use Google because there is no better alternative • Portals exist but content often limited or difficult to locate quickly • Technical means to provide a comprehensive searching and linking service for academic use are already in place • What we are lacking are the organizational structures

3. USERS SEARCHING FOR RELEVANT JOURNAL CONTENT • Traditional method : use local library content, follow citations, use inter-library loan service to obtain articles not in local library • This method inadequate in a networked world, therefore threat that intermediaries will be by-passed • We talk of a “pool of information”, implying that it is like a static, shallow, well-lit and confined swimming pool • It is in fact a huge “sea of information”, ever-moving, deep, dark and boundless • Users plunge into this “sea” knowing only the outline of the “shore” they seek • Opportunities for the intermediaries lie in guiding the user • Opportunity for CrossRef lies in developing a tool that will assist both librarians and publishersin guiding users

4. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SERVICE • Key-word searching – because users know key-words • Links to both subscription and open access content – because users need both • Librarians will be by-passed if their services do not include subscription content users need • Publishers will be by-passed if their services do not include open access content users need • Whatever our views for or against open access, the reality is that we live in a mixed economy of subscription and open access content, and our services need to reflect that reality • The opportunity lies in providing a searching and linking service for both subscription and open access content

5. THE NEED FOR A PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP • No single publisher can provide the comprehensive searching and linking service required by users • Publicly-funded organizations have an interest in helping to develop such a service but not in maintaining it • Way forward may lie in a partnership between publicly-funded and commercially-funded organizations • Perception-barrier to be overcome, that CrossRef only exists for the benefit of its members • Wider vision : “CrossRef's general purpose is to promote the development and cooperative use of new and innovative technologies to speed and facilitate scholarly research”.

6. PARTNERSHIP CAN BE A GOOD WAY FORWARD • Publishers and publicly-funded organizations have been able to co-operate successfully, e.g. in the development of statistics of use of electronic content • Will publicly-funded organizations be willing to provide development funding under certain conditions? • Will open access publishers join the DOI system? • Many questions but a good opportunity for CrossRef to develop a service which meets the needs of users for a searching and linking service to both subscription and open access content • THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.