The Role of the Librarian in an Open Access World

Ellen Finnie DuranceauScholarly Publishing & Licensing ConsultantMIT Libraries

BioMed Central Consultation Workshop 5/21/07

MIT Librarians & Open Access: Outline

Context and Mission The view from 3,000 feet: New activities New positions Implications

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

MIT Libraries’ Mission:Evolution with Open Access

Current (2003): The mission of the MIT libraries is to create and sustain an intuitive, trusted information 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 community think of first when they need information.

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

New Activities

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

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)

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

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

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

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

New Positions

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

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

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

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

Implications

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

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