LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 13 Open Access Initiatives of the Central University Libraries of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland
R.K. Sofia Devi* Dr. Ch. Ibohal Singh**
Abstract Open access initiative is a new approach, movement to democratize accessing to scholarly publication to the academic community liberalizing from economic and geographical barriers. The present study has sought to compare the existing library services and initiatives towards open access in three central University libraries of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. Exposing certain clues on some aspects of open access, the study covers only Assam University, Silchar, Nagaland University, Kohima and Manipur University, Imphal. The study had also revealed some of the major challenges and recommendations in proper adoption of OAI in the universities.
Keywords: Open access, OAI, University library, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland
Introduction Universities adopt open access initiatives as a means of providing better access to teaching, learning and research materials to not only its own academic community but also to provide their research output to a wider audience across the world. In the developing countries it has been seen as an unprecedented opportunity to provide equality of access to essential research information and raising awareness of research. Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of information resources particularly research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results- to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives(SPARC.org).Three groups took initiatives towards open access: the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), Bethesda statement and Berlin Declaration in 2003. The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) took place in 2001, where the term “open access” was coined and the two strategies of GreenOA and Gold OA were devised (Poynder, 2010). The “golden road” of OA journal publishing is where journals provide OA to their articles either by charging the author-institution for refereeing/publishing outgoing articles instead of charging the user-institution for accessing incoming articles, or by simply making their online edition free for all. The “green road” of OA self-archiving is where authors provide OA to their own published articles, by making their own e-prints for all. The problems that developing countries have always faced with respect to research information are unable to meet the high cost of subscriptions and as a consequence researchers have remained informationally impoverished and professionally isolated. Further, the scholarly knowledge arising from their own research inability to integrate national research into the global knowledge pool.(OASIS)Librarians have numerous roles to play in the growing digital environment, with the move towards open access prompting a profound change in the way university libraries manage their scholarly communications – not least in how they use online repositories for publishing and opening up access to research.
Past Studies A good number of studies are found to be conducted across the world on various aspects of open access and its initiatives. Some of the recent past studies have shown us many issues associated with these newly emerged concepts in the field of library and information sciences.
* Research Scholar, UGC-JRF, Department of LIS, Manipur University, Imphal, E-mail: [email protected] ** Assistant Professor (S-2), Department of LIS, Manipur University, Imphal, E-mail: [email protected] LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 14
The open access movement has turned to libraries as a haven for solutions. As published content grew more expensive and restricted, and the internet made the distribution of ideas relatively cheap and easy, avoiding the publisher as a middle man, open access became an obvious option for libraries. Today libraries becoming alternative publishers through institutional repositories (Jain, 2012). Fundamental role of libraries in removing barriers to the free exchange of information is transforming the landscape of scholarly communication through building institutional repositories, publishing OA journals, hosting Open Educational Resources, facilitating access to research data and advocating for the passage of OA policies. Many of these activities fall under the emerging field of library publishing, which will be a fundamental role for many academic libraries in an OA future. (Chadwell & Sutton, 2014). In a study, Polynder, (2013) proposed that a small set of competent and motivated libraries with large subscription budgets and substantial faculty support cooperate in taking the lead. This group of libraries would shift funds from subscriptions to investing in developing infrastructure and other components, for a library-based scholarly communication system. He estimates that this could deliver savings of somewhere between 30-90 per cent over today’s subscription costs. Exploring the role of librarians, Myers (2011), revealing that Librarians have played a different role than LIS faculty in open access (OA) practice. In addition to participating in OA activities as publication contributors for self-archiving and consumers for access, reading, and citing, many academic librarians also have been involved in advocating, studying, planning, implementing, and managing OA repositories. A recently released guide from the Research Information Network acknowledges that in the very long term, open access may help to reduce the pressure on library budges, but for the next three to five years at least, open access initiatives will continue to represent additional burdens on libraries, while the costs of running repositories, or paying publication fees, are not being offset by any significant reductions in subscription costs for scholarly journals (Information Today Europe e-News, 2010).
As the review reveals, academic libraries particularly research institutions should take major initiatives in proper adoption of OA culture in their institutions through establishing OA repositories, or supporting OA publishing including Open access educational resources. OA will be the only solution to reduce the price and access barrier, increase the visibility of research output, enhance the scholarly communication among the researchers in the near future particularly for the under develop country.
Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are: To assess the motives behind initiatives of the OAI in the Universities To understand the impact of OAI in budget, collection, suppliers, publishers, and user communities to ascertain major challenges faced in proper adoption of OA culture in their universities to draw suggestions so as to develop sustainable OA model in future
Scope and Methodology There are altogether 10 Central Universities in the entire North Eastern Region of India including Sikkim. However, as the title of the study states, the scope of the present study has been taken up confining to the following aspects: a) Three Central Universities of North East India namely; Assam University, Silchar Manipur University, Imphal Nagaland University, Kohima b) The libraries of these Universities c) Open Access Initiatives (OAI) taken up by these libraries LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 15
d) Motives behind adoption of OAI, its impact, challenges faced and suggestions towards improving the systems.
Methodology The methods adopted in the study are:
Personal visit to the libraries and meeting and discussing about the issues with the librarians and a few user community. Use of a semi-structurally designed questionnaire to collect data from the libraries concerned Adoption of simple mathematical calculations in the analysis of data and interpretation using tables, etc.
Universities and their Libraries As mentioned above the universities covered in the present study are being discussed here below:
Assam University Assam University, Silchar, a central university established in 1994, has 38 departments under 16 schools. Rabindra Library is its Central library. At present it has 15 professional staff, 6 non- professional staff and 1 IT professionals with a collection of 1,24,000 books and a number of e-books and e- journals which are available in UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium and Delcon consortium. Library has started its automation and digitization process using KOHA library management software and DSpace software respectively
Manipur University The State University of Manipur established on 5th June, 1980 became a Central University in October 13, 2005. Presently it has 32 departments under 6 Schools. Manipur University Library has now a collection of 1, 80,344 books and subscribes to more than 200 printed journals. In terms of e- resources it has a collection of 2713 e- books, 8500 e-journals, 586 CD/DVD and more than 800 ETDs. Manipur University Library is also a member of UGC –INFONET Digital Library Consortium. It has already started automation using SOUL Library management software and digitization work is under process using DSpace software.
Nagaland University Nagaland University is the only Central University in the state of Nagaland. It was established in 1994. At present it has 8 departments. Nagaland University Library has a holding of around 49,000 books working with 3 professionals and 10 non-professionals.
Background Information about the Libraries From the table 1, it is seen that while Assam and Nagaland Universities follow DDC and AACR - 2R as it is CC and CCC in case of Manipur University for classification and cataloguing purposes. All the libraries have sections such as –Acquisitions, circulation, technical, periodical, Reference and OPAC. No digital library facilities have been introduced so far in these libraries. Manipur University Library also has sections for e- resources, data entry, ETD and Bindings which are not available in the two libraries. Availability of bound periodicals section is observed only in Assam University. LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 16
Table1: Background information of the libraries Sections urces dical Library scheme dical Tec DES culation Binding Refer Classification ETD lab OPAC Bound perio Catalogue Catalogue code Cir E reso Acquisition Perio Digital Digital library DDC AU AACR-I × × × × × 23rd √ √ √ √ √ √ √
NU DDC AACR-2R √ √ √ √ √ √ × × × × × ×
MU CC CCC √ √ √ √ √ √ √ × √ √ √ ×
Note: AU= Assam University, NU= Nagaland University, MU= Manipur university, DES=Data entry section, ETD= Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Lab. General Library Services The services of the libraries are shown under table 2 below. Table 2: Services of the Libraries Library Services Assam OPAC, web OPAC, Reference service ,barcode, reprography, user education University Manipur OPAC, reference service, e reference service, barcode, wi- fi, Newspaper University clipping service, reprography, user education Nagaland OPAC, reference service, barcode, RFID, reprography, user education University
As the table indicates, all the libraries under study have similar services excepting the provision of some services like RFID, wi-fi, Newspaper clipping, etc. while RFID is available in Nagaland University, wi-fi and newspaper clipping services are available in Manipur University Library.
Towards Open access initiatives (OAI) Libraries should consider OAI as an opportunity to meet the various challenges in fulfilling the demands of users and for its sustainability. Librarians and information professionals should come forward to take major initiatives in promoting open access in their respective institutions. They have educated faculty and administrators about evolving scholarly communication environment. Libraries have partnered with faculty and research managers to set up open access repositories and to help faculty and students deposit their research outputs. They have helped scholarly publishers to publish open access journals and books, and they have worked with educators to produce open educational resources ensuring the quality of digital content, its reuse and sharing. Open access has thus changed the profile of academic and research libraries (IFLA,2002). Coming down to the context of North-East India OAI in the University of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur are in their initial stage. They have supported open access movement through establishing Institutional Repositories and supporting Open access publishing including open access journals, open access books, open educational resources in their universities. Assam University and Manipur University is under the process of establishing their own Institutional Repositories using DSpace software. They have taken up various measures to reach out OA resources to users through library LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 17 catalogue, library websites, DOAJ, DOAB, Open J- Gate, Google scholars, etc. Nagaland University has not yet introduced any OAI.
The Common Motives Universities and Research organizations, researchers, students, faculties have started to consider OA as a problem solver. Since the past decade libraries have been facing several constraints due to certain factors including serial crisis where subscription prices have risen significantly faster than inflation and significantly faster than library budgets, publishers ‘Big Deal’ policy which minimize cancellations by bundling hundreds or thousands of high demand and low demand journals into one package, access gap among developed, developing and under developed counties is also one reason. OAI is going to be a force to stop publishers monopoly on information market since academicians, research organizations, funding bodies should start to realize that ‘we donate time, labor, and public money to create new knowledge and then hand control over the results to businesses that believe, correctly or incorrectly, that their revenue and survival depend on limiting access to that knowledge’.(Suber, 2012)With the advancement of internet and digital technology OA is an opportunity to enhance research, teaching and learning since OA literature is easy to access, free from permission and copyright barriers, enriched the library collections, helps to increase the visibility and impact of both the researchers and organizations. Some of the possible common motives behind the adoption of OAI in the university libraries are shown under table 3 below: Table 3: Motives behind adoption of OAI Assam University Nagaland Manipur University Options (AU) University (NU) (MU) Very Very Very Likely Neutral Likely Neutral Likely Neutral likely Likely Likely Serial crisis √ √ √ Immediate access to the literature √ √ √ Removes Price and Access Barriers √ √ √ Free from most of copyright and √ √ √ licensing fee Open access journal is compatible with √ √ √ peer review journal Increase visibility and impact of √ √ √ research output Enrich library collection √ √ √ OA acts as a key element of the √ √ √ research infrastructure OA helps users to find the information they need regardless of the budget √ √ enforced limits on the libraries own collection OA institutional repository will become the preservation centre of the √ √ future knowledge
From table 3, it can be revealed that the possible motives behind OAI in these three Universities varied. Immediate access to the literature, removes price and access barrier and enrich library collection are agreed very highly by all the three university. Serial crisis is likely agreed by AU and NU while MU agrees very highly. Free from most of the copyright and licensing fee and OA acts as a key element of the research infrastructure is agreed likely by all the libraries. NU and MU likely agree that OA journal is compatible with peer reviewed journal. Increase visibility and impact of research output are likely agreed by AU and NU while MU agrees it Very highly. OA helps users to find the information they need regardless of the budget enforced limits on the libraries own LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 18 collection and OA institutional repository will become the preservation centre of the future knowledge is agreed likely by AU and MU.
General Impact of OAI Open access initiatives has had an impact on different sectors of scholarly communication process which may include researchers, publishers, vendors or suppliers, libraries, administrators, citation impact, usability by the readers, and ultimately to the general public. Libraries, publishers and vendors have many common goals, the key being to increase usage. The following table shows general impact of the OAI in the library systems. Table 4: Impact of OAI Assam Nagaland Manipur Parameters University University University Yes No Yes No Yes No Library budget √ √ √ Collection development √ √ √ Vendor/ Supplier √ √ √ Publisher √ √ Readers access to printed library resources √ √ √
There are different views regarding the impact of OAI on different sectors as table shows. AU and NU have opined that Library budget, collection development and readers access to printed library resources have been affected with the adoption of OAI but OAI does not have impact on vendor/ supplier and publisher. However, MU feels that OAI have an impact on collection development, vendor/ supplier, publishers excluding library budget.
Challenging Task Ahead Some of the major challenges in achieving a full OA models in scientific communication are given under table 5 below: Table 5: The challenges faced Assam Nagaland Manipur Challenges University University University Yes No Yes No Yes No Lack of awareness ,ignorance and lack of appreciation of √ √ √ OA by users, faculties and authorities Lack of leadership and poor infrastructure √ √ √ Lack of technical expertise in establishing IR √ √ √ Low submission rate of articles for uploading in IR √ √ Paper submission policy is not defined √ √ √ IPR and copyright clearance is slowing down the deposit rate Difficult to requite contents √ √ √ Undefined metadata policy √ √ Difficult to maintain consistency in the description of √ √ items √ Authors assurance that OA publishing might lead to poor √ √ quality publishing Felling of OA journals inferior to subscription based √ √ √ journals Researchers did not equate OA publishing with practice √ √ led research outputs like music, arts, etc. LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 19
As Table-5 shows various challenges have been facing in proper adoption of OA in their institutions. Lack of awareness, ignorance and lack of appreciation of OA by users, faculties and authorities, lack of leadership and poor infrastructure, lack of technical expertise in establishing IR , seem to be major challenges in these three universities. Undefined paper submission policy and feeling of OA journals inferior to subscription based journals are also other challenging factors for NU and MU. Again MU and AU agreed undefined metadata policy and inequality of OA publishing with practice lead research outputs like music, art, etc. as other challenging issues.
For a Sustainable OA model Drawing suggestions from the stockholders, models can be conceptualized towards having sustainable OA model for the libraries. While drawing suggestions, the university libraries have opined their options as shown in table 6 below: Table 6: Suggestions towards achieving a sustainable OA model Assam Nagaland Manipur Suggestions University Uuniversity University Yes No Yes No Yes No
Develop OA culture among the users √ √ √ Promotion of OA journals and other OA publications to √ √ √ researchers and academics Introduce an OA policy framework at institutional level √ √ working together with research board. Educating faculties and students on the importance of open √ √ √ access for global sharing and visibility Librarians and subordinate staff should take part in training √ √ and continuing programs Organizing seminars and workshops and seminars on OA, √ √ self-archiving and copyright issues Librarians should act as an change agent with creativity, courage, visibility , perseverance and in deriving √ √ motivation among the authors Need a clear instruction and policy at the point of √ √ submission and use OAIR Authorities should made mandatory policy to self- archive √ their research output to institutions own IR Full support from the top authorities of the Institution. √
As the Table 6shows, all the three universities have suggested to develop OA culture among the users, promotion of OA journals and other OA publications to researchers and academics, educating faculties and students on the importance of open access for global sharing and visibility. While AU and MU also added to introduce an OA policy framework at institutional level working together with research board, librarians should act as a change agent with creativity, courage, visibility, perseverance and in deriving motivation among the authors. NU and MU also suggested that librarians and subordinate staff should take part in training and continuing programs, Organizing seminars and workshops and seminars on OA, self-archiving and copyright issues and need for a clear instruction and policy at the point of submission and use OAIR. Above all MU suggested making mandatory policy to self- archive institutions’ research output to institutions own IR and provide full support from the top authorities of the Institution. LISPA JOURNAL, VOL II, 2016 20
Conclusion
Opening up access to research and information isn't a luxury – it's a necessity (Smith, 2015). Open access is the only means to reduce access gaps among developed and third world country. In 2008, Harvard subscribed to 98,900serials and Yale to 73,900, the best funded research library in India, at the Indian Institute of Science, subscribe to 10,600 serials, and several sub-Saharan African university Libraries subscribed to zero, offering their patron access to no conventional journals except those donated by publishers (Suber,2012). Assam, Nagaland and Manipur belong to the North Eastern region of India where there is poor connectivity to the mainland India, facing lots of insurgency problem, violating human right issues and many more which have affected the region. Universities, research institutions, academician, researcher should come forward to support and take full advantage of Open Access movement to meet the new challenges of information explosions, to democratize access to scientific knowledge and to achieve overall development in the society. Based on the suggestions given by the libraries, models of OAI can be conceptualized in the University libraries.
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