From: "Lucraft, Mithu" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 09:38:27 +0000

***Apologies for cross posting***

Colleagues may be interested in a report published today by SAGE in
association with the British Library on the role for academic
librarians in an OA future

The report can be accessed online here:
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/repository/binaries/pdf/Library-OAReport.pdf

Kind regards

Mithu Lucraft,
PR Manager,
SAGE

**********************

WHAT ROLE WILL ACADEMIC LIBRARIES PLAY IN MOVING TOWARDS AN OPEN ACCESS FUTURE?

SAGE publishes report following roundtable in association with the
British Library

London, UK (04 September, 2012) – In April, leading independent
academic and professional publisher SAGE convened a roundtable in
association with the British Library into the role of the academic
library in an open access (OA) future. Chaired by publishing
consultant Simon Inger and attended by an international panel of 14
senior librarians and other industry experts, the conclusions of this
discussion have today been published in a report, “Moving towards an
open access future: the role of academic libraries”.

The report is a summary of the discussion around what support and
skills librarians will require in an OA future, and how institutions,
publishers, funders and other parties should be supporting their
library partners, including variation by discipline and geographic
region. Representing librarians from the UK, Europe, USA and the
Middle East, attendees indicated that the concept of the individual
library is changing. Panellists highlighted an important shift,
recognizing that attention will shift from the library to the
librarian: the information professional will be the library of the
future. Academic libraries and research communication will have to
evolve as open access grows in importance, but while traditional roles
may change, librarians will still play an important role in managing
and advising on information and information-related budgets.

Key discussions include:

* Addressing the culture of mistrust and misunderstanding regarding OA
amongst researchers

* The varying uptake of OA and the subsequent impacts

* The key roles that librarians will play in:

  - Sharing discovery and support services amongst libraries and institutions

  - Managing services such as institutional repositories

  - Providing licensing and related advice to researchers

  - Supporting preservation and managing metadata and recognising the
importance of recommender services

  - Explaining open access to researchers.

Open access calls for a greater move towards communication and working
together. The report concluded that to remain an important part of the
research process in institutions and beyond, the librarian has to be
creative and support users in new ways through communication,
collaboration and tools.

Stephen Barr, President SAGE International said, “SAGE is committed to
supporting the sustainable dissemination of scholarly and educational
material. The shift to open access raises issues for the whole
scholarly communication process, and we are committed to working with
our stakeholders to navigate these changes together. We were delighted
to work with the British Library in hosting this workshop to review
the potential challenges for academic libraries. Events since the
workshop, such as the Finch report and restatement of the position of
the EU on access to and preservation of scientific information, have
increased the importance of engaging with these changes for many
stakeholders. We are part of a changing scholarly landscape and are
committed to supporting our publishing partners, including launching
new SAGE Open journals and widening the availability of our SAGE
Choice programme at a lower rate for the humanities and social
sciences.”

Caroline Brazier, Director of Scholarship and Collections, The British
Library, said, “The research library community has been awaiting a
‘sea-change’ in the world of scholarly communications [...] and it may
finally be arriving. Open Access is expected to speed up research
progress, productivity, and knowledge transfer as well as promoting
the democratisation of knowledge. While research librarians have been
amongst the strongest advocates of open access models, the
implications of these models for research libraries and their future
role in supporting the research process are less well understood. With
this in mind, we very much welcomed the opportunity to work with SAGE
to host the roundtable at the British Library and to participate in
stimulating discussions. We hope this report conveys the urgency and
significance of these issues to the wider research community.”

The report, “Moving towards an open access future: the role of
academic libraries”, forms part of a suite of research-led resources
commissioned by SAGE for the librarian community. Others include:
“Working Together: evolving value for academic libraries” and
“Improving Discoverability of Content in the Twenty-First Century ”.
The full report can be viewed here. For further information about this
report and the other white papers for the library community, please
visit  SAGE ‘s Library page.

###

“Moving towards an open access future: the role of academic libraries”
was produced by Research Information’s editor, Sian Harris as the
summary of roundtable discussion convened by SAGE Publications Ltd in
association with the British Library. The final report is a summary of
the roundtable held on the 26 April 2012, with a panel of 14
librarians and industry participants. The findings reflect the
opinions of the participants.

###

SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and
electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets.
Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of
scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide
range of subject areas including business, humanities, social
sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent
company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi,
Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and
one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world
class information services to the academic, business, research and
scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's
largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's
collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million
separate items representing every age of written civilisation and
includes books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents,
photographs, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken
languages. Up to 10 million people visit the British Library website -
www.bl.uk - every year where they can view up to 4 million digitised
collection items and over 40 million pages.  http://www.bl.uk

The roundtable was chaired by Simon Inger, publishing consultant and
was attended by:

* Ann Okerson, Center for Research Libraries

* Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences

* Carolyn Alderson, JISC Collections

* Catriona Cannon, Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford

* Christine Fyfe, University of Leicester

* Elizabeth Chapman, London School of Economics and Political Science

* June Hedges, University College London

* Lars Bjornshauge, IFLA & SPARC Europe

* Liz Jolly, Teesside University

* Michael Jubb, Research Information Network

* Mohammed Mubarek, Qatar Foundation

* Nicky Whitsed, Open University

* Rick Anderson, University of Utah

* Tony Kidd, SHEDL
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