Open Access and Evolving Scholarly Communication an Overview of Library Advocacy and Commitment, Institutional Repositories, and Publishing in Canada
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scholarly communication Heather Morrison and Andrew Waller Open access and evolving scholarly communication An overview of library advocacy and commitment, institutional repositories, and publishing in Canada he open access movement in Canada is very Whereas connecting users with the Tactive in many areas. This is not surprising; information they need is one of the of the 16 people at the Budapest meeting which library’s most essential functions, was the foundation of the Budapest Open Ac- and access to information is one cess Initiative (BOAI), three were Canadians, of librarianship’s most cherished all global leaders in this arena: Leslie Chan, values, therefore CLA recommends Jean-Claude Guédon, and Stevan Harnad. The that Canadian libraries of all types Canadian Association of Research Libraries strongly support and encourage (CARL) was among the earliest signatories of open access. the BOAI, and quickly initiated a nationwide institutional repository program. The Canadian CLA encourages Canadian libraries of all Library Association (CLA) recently approved an types to: innovative “Position Statement on Open Access • Support and encourage policies requir- for Canadian Libraries,” calling for all libraries to ing open access to research supported by participate in advocacy, educating patrons abut Canadian public funding, as defi ned above. open access resources, and encouraging support If delay or embargo periods are permitted for open access, including economic support. to accommodate publisher concerns, these The Canadian Institutes of Health Re- should be considered temporary, to provide search (CIHR) has an open access mandate publishers with an opportunity to adjust, and policy, requiring open access to CIHR-funded a review period should be built in, with a research within six months. The Social Sci- view to decreasing or eliminating any delay ences and Humanities Research Council or embargo period. (SSHRC) has an Aid to Open Access Journals • Raise awareness of library patrons and program. Other funding agencies in Canada other key stakeholders about open access, either have, or are developing, open access both the concept and the many open access policies and support. resources, through means appropriate to each This article presents an overview of CLA advocacy and open access in Canada, with a Contact Joyce L. Ogburn—series editor, cochair of focus on initiatives with a strong library involve- the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee, ment or leadership. and university librarian at the University of Utah— with article ideas, e-mail: [email protected] CLA and other library associations Heather Morrison is project coordinator of the On May 21, 2008, the CLA executive approved British Columbia Electronic Library Network, e- mail: [email protected], Andrew Waller is serials the “Position Statement on Open Access for librarian at the University of Calgary Library, e-mail: Canadian Libraries.”1 The text of the position [email protected] statement is: © 2008 Heather Morrison and Andrew Waller C&RL News September 2008 486 library, such as education campaigns and in this area; BCLA is recognized on Peter promoting open access resources. Suber’s Open Access Timeline as one of the • Support the development of open access early leaders in this area, having adopted a in all of its varieties, including gold (open ac- “Resolution on Open Access” in 2004. cess publishing) and green (open access self- archiving). Libraries should consider provid- Open access repositories ing economic and technical support for open A manifestation of the “green” arm of the access publishing, by supporting open access open access movement, open access re- journals or by participating in the payment positories generally fall into two categories: of article processing fees for open access. institutional repositories, mostly maintained The latter could occur through redirection of by universities (these sometimes contain funds that would otherwise support journal non-open access digital content), and sub- subscriptions, or through taking a leadership ject repositories, which are international. position in coordinating payments by other In Canada, there are a growing number bodies, such as academic or government of repositories, mostly of the institutional departments or funding agencies. variety. As of late July 2008, the Registry of • Support and encourage authors to re- Open Access Repositories (ROAR)3 lists 46 tain their copyright, through the use of the repositories in Canada, while the Directory of CARL/SPARC Author’s Addendum or Creative Open Access Journals (OpenDOAR)4 lists 42. Commons licensing, for example. Most of these are new and small but growing; The “Position Statement on Open Access the three repositories with the most records for Canadian Libraries” emerged from years (more than 10,000) are those belonging to the of open access advocacy, education, and International Development Research Centre member consultation by CLA members, who (IDRC), the University of Toronto, and the endorsed a “Resolution on Open Access” in University of Calgary. 2005. In 2006, a CLA Open Access Task Force Many of these repositories are part of the was formed to draft policies on open access CARL Institutional Repositories Program.5 for CLA’s own publications and to draft the There are 26 institutions listed as participants “Open Access Position Statement.” In 2007, with several more indicated as being under CLA announced open access policies for its development. The CARL program began in own publications that are so strong that they 2003 and was designed to support members are almost an open communications policy; as they established repositories. Now that this basically, if information is not confi dential, has largely been achieved, other issues are it should be shared openly. CLA’s newsletter being investigated including usage statistics, “Feliciter” is openly accessible after a one-is- metadata, and the creation of a repository sue embargo period, authors are encouraged advocacy toolkit. CARL also coordinates a to self-archive, and no embargo is imposed cross-repository search service, the CARL on self-archived content. Monographs are Metadata Harvester.6 This search service may considered for open access on a case-by- prove to be particularly useful in identifying case basis.2 Canada-specific research, a long-term and Other Canadian library associations, in- ongoing issue when searching large subject- cluding the Canadian Association of Research specifi c databases. Libraries (CARL) and provincial associations New repositories are emerging on a regu- have been actively involved in open access lar basis in Canada. For instance, as this article advocacy in Canada, contributing strong was being completed, the National Research pro-open-access submissions to open access Council’s (NRC) Institute for Scientifi c Infor- policy consultations by research funding mation announced the creation of the NRC agencies. The British Columbia Library As- Publications Archive, with a December 2008 sociation (BCLA) has been particularly active launch date.7 September 2008 487 C&RL News Funding agencies research; a draft is anticipated for March There are three main federal research fund- 2009. ing agencies in Canada, the Social Sciences It is likely that Canada’s three research and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), councils will harmonize their policies, so Canadian Institutes of Health Research watch for a maximum six-month embargo, (CIHR), and the Natural Sciences and Engi- and support for either open access publish- neering Research Council (NSERC). ing or author self-archiving. SSHRC adopted open access in principle Canada’s International Development Re- in 2004. In time, SSHRC is likely to adopt search Council (IDRC) has an open access an open access mandate policy for SSHRC- policy and archive, and ambitious plans to funded research; however, this has been provide open access to previously funded delayed, with one of the key reasons being research since the inception of the council. that many of Canada’s social sciences and Where open access cannot be provided, humanities publishers were not publishing IDRC provides access through interlibrary online in 2004. loans. Canada’s NRC is expected to an- In addition to funding social sciences nounce an open access policy to take effect and humanities research, SSHRC coordinates in January 2009 to fill its new archive which a research journals support program for will open December 2008. Canadian social sciences and humanities In Canada, there are also provincially research journals. This is a common practice based funding bodies, some of which are in many countries. For the vast majority of investigating, if not supporting, open access. publishers, scholarly publishing, particularly For example, the Alberta Heritage Founda- in the social sciences and humanities, is a tion for Medical Research allows the research necessity for academic reasons, but not a allowance portion of Independent Investiga- profitable venture. In June 2007, SSHRC tor Awards Transition Awards to be used to launched an Aid to Open Access Research cover open access publishing costs.10 The Journals program,8 designed to assist open Ontario Institutes of Cancer Research (OICR) access journals and to test new criteria for recently announced a strong open access the journal subsidy program. The develop- mandate policy for OICR-funded research- ment of new criteria for journal readership ers.11 One interesting feature of the OICR is necessary because