‘‘ O
NE of the report’s findings is that
complexity has created metadata problems that are increasingly
becoming C-level issues. These issues are explored by OCLC in articles published alongside the report. Here we have provided excerpts from two of them, the first outlining how com- plexity has created metadata problems for users, the second looks at why these are now a priority at C-level. The articles and report draw upon the Open Access Discovery project, an OCLC Research study co-led by Ixchel Faniel, Senior Research Scientist, OCLC Research, that resulted in the report – Improving Open Access Discovery for Academic Library Users (
oc.lc/oa-discovery).
Make OA work for users These excerpts are from Open access is not broken. Discovery is. They explore how students behave in the mixed open access and subscription content environ- ment, and the role metadata management plays in exacerbating and potentially fixing them: “When a student hits a paywall, the next step is often predictable. They look for an open access version. “OCLC Research confirms this behav-
iour. Its Open Access Discovery study found that while users actively seek schol- arly, peer-reviewed OA publications, they still find it not very easy to discover or access. The problem is not motivation. It is whether OA is operationalised as part of the same end-to-end pipeline as licensed content, so links, versions, and rights information stay consistent wherever users start.
“An undergraduate searches for a 14
OA growth, hybrid models, and AI generated or self published content are accelerating complexity at a time when budgets remain flat.
Perspective on the e-resource landscape
OCLC published its Unlocking the future of e-resource management report in March 2026 as a response to a landscape shaped by rising complexity and constrained budgets.
seminar reading. They click a result and hit a paywall. They try again and find a repository copy. It downloads, but it is not obvious whether it is the accepted manuscript or the final published version. There is no clear reuse statement. The student is left guessing whether it is safe to cite, safe to share, and even whether it is the right thing. This is the moment where OA either feels effortless or feels risky. The difference is metadata that car- ries version and rights signals all the way through to the point of decision. “Hybrid journals and transformative agreements have made OA and subscrip- tion content coexist at the article level. In theory, this expands access. In practice, it can create messy outcomes when metadata is incomplete or inconsistent. “Without rigorous article-level metadata and reliable propagation of license and version information, discovery systems can:
l Surface duplicates that look like sepa- rate items;
l hide legitimate open copies behind weaker links;
l route users to a paywalled version even when an OA copy exist;
l fail to help users distinguish between a preprint, accepted manuscript, and version of record;
l leave users unclear about what they can reuse, share, or cite.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that arti- cle-level metadata for OA titles is often incomplete. Harvesting and aggregation rules can be opaque. Labels sometimes confuse OA status or version. Closing these gaps turns OA policy into practice by making open versions visible along- side licensed copies, and by ensuring that
Ixchel Faniel.
version and rights signals are clear at the point of need.”
“A common concern is that OA can surface non-peer-reviewed content, espe- cially when preprints are in the mix. The remedy is not to deprioritise OA. It is to clarify the signals users need to evaluate what they are seeing. “The OA discovery findings from OCLC point to peer review status, version infor- mation, and identifiers as key metadata that helps users decide what is trustwor- thy and what is appropriate to cite. Better OA discovery is not about pushing users toward one route. It is about giving them clear choices.”
The message according to OCLC’s new report, Unlocking the future of e-resource management, is straightforward: if you want OA to work reliably for users, you need to treat it as part of the same end- to-end pipeline as licensed content. The report translates that into four moves libraries can implement now:
l Integrate OA and licensed content at source;
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