Analysis and news
“Unlike journals, the book supply chain between publishers and libraries is much more fragmented and diffused”
All major players to which Knowledge
Unlatched addressed the issue in private conversations, have given the feedback that enabling librarians to disambiguate titles that have an open access version and a (printed) copy is not at the top of their agenda. With the increasing volume of open access books from publishing companies of all sizes, they may decide to revisit this decision shortly. While open access in general – and for
– in most cases built on statistics following the COUNTER standard. To a certain extent, usage has become
a second currency between librarians and publishers. This trend was pushed even further by business models like demand driven acquisition (DDA), where library spending is directly linked to usage. In open access publishing, the
increasing focus on usage poses a special challenge. Knowledge Unlatched, for example, generates approximately 50 per cent of its traffic from users that are not logged onto any library system. However, given the nature of the content – highly specialised research monographs – it is very unlikely that so many downloads are created from users not linked to the academic ecosystem at all. It is much more likely that users simply do not log in to use OA books – a very sensible thing to do, as open access is all about unrestricted access. KU has addressed this challenge for its
www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo
titles by adding geo-location data to its COUNTER statistics, starting from the first quarter in 2017. Finally, the facet of usage being distributed over multiple outlets is a concern not only for Knowledge Unlatched, but for open and traditional access publishers alike. Initiatives such as those around CrossRef are important to track and consolidate usage, as they will help librarians to better understand the impact of their acquisitions. The role of intermediaries, for the book medium even more than for journals, has reached a tipping point – both for their own businesses as well as the enforcement of open access through all acquisition channels. While it is understandable that intermediaries need to find an answer to contracting sales volume in traditional business models as subscriptions or book sales through approval plans, their response to it does not seem appropriate.
books specifically – is faced with some challenges, it constitutes one of the few segments in the global publishing markets that shows healthy growth rates and still allows for small players to enter the scene. Even though independent initiatives that build on collaboration often had their nucleus in Europe and the United States, the open access books ecosystem is now gradually expanding in reach with both publishers and libraries to Asia, Africa and Latin America. With potent publishing markets like Japan beginning to embrace open access, new challenges such as adapting to a growing variety of institutional structures while existing open access infrastructure must prove its capability to handle growing volumes. After all, open access books may stand on the threshold of gaining global momentum if existing solutions are perpetuated with perseverance while future challenges are met with innovative thinking. In this way, different collaborative approaches will empower libraries and publishers to increase volume and create critical mass for a publishing business model that is open to all academics, independent of their institutional funding.
February/March 2017 Research Information 13
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