News
OA books ‘have greater usage and higher citations’
Open access (OA) books are reaching more countries and have greater usage and higher citation numbers than non- OA books. A new analysis collaboratively produced by Springer Nature and Coard (Collaborative Open Access Research & Development) presents these and other key findings in a white paper that explores how OA affects the geographical diversity of readers. It shows that OA books have substantially more readers in low-income and lower-middle-income countries and that OA also helps to increase attention to scholarship about these countries. The study is to date the largest and most comprehensive of its kind; the underlying dataset is based on 3,934 books published by Springer Nature, including 281 OA books. Confirming previous research looking at the potential usage benefits of OA, this analysis shows more downloads and more citations for every type of book, in every discipline, in each of the three years of publication (2015, 2016, 2017) included in the sample. The report finds that OA books, on average, achieve 10 times more downloads and 2.4 times more citations than non-OA books. Furthermore, download numbers from the open web are generally around double those from institutional network points. Ros Pyne, director for open access
books at Springer Nature, said: ‘The analysis reveals clear benefits for OA books, demonstrating that immediate OA increases and diversifies the readership of scholarly books. We hope the findings of this collaborative project will help encourage greater support for OA books among authors, institutions, funders, and all those involved in scholarly communications.’
Universities ‘will cancel publisher deals’ if prices fail to come down
A price freeze on journal subscriptions will not be enough to avoid UK researchers losing access to key academic content, warn three major sector bodies representing academic library directors and higher education managers. Research Libraries UK (RLUK), SCONUL,
the professional association for academic and research libraries, and Jisc say that immediate reductions are necessary if institutions are to retain access to content. Universities are under heavy pressure to cut expenditure and divert financial resources to areas of immediate concern, including online teaching and measures to limit the spread of Covid-19. Stella Butler, University of Leeds’
librarian and keeper of the Brotherton collection said: ‘The pandemic has put extraordinary pressure on university budgets. In the new normal that has yet to emerge, libraries will be forced to prioritise their spending. Publishers should be focussing on supporting research by reducing journal costs, not on maintaining profit levels. If prices do not come down, cancellations are inevitable.’ Liz Waller, director of library services
and librarian at Durham University said: ‘At this time of crisis we are having to take extremely difficult and unwelcome decisions, and reduce costs that necessitate a comprehensive review of our subscriptions. We have already identified titles which we will be pausing next year, and this will be extended to select “big deals”. Publishers must understand the need for price reductions and a full transition to open access, to put libraries in a position to maintain subscriptions.’ Universities UK and Jisc have already
called on major academic publishers to seek reductions of 25 per cent on agreements due to the grave financial impact of the pandemic. David Prosser, executive director at
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RLUK, said: ‘The global pandemic is increasing costs and reducing budgets in an unprecedented way. Libraries will need to make cuts and the only place where there will be enough money to make large enough savings is ‘big deals’ with publishers. Unless there are significant price reductions, these big deals will inevitably be cut – to the detriment of scholarship and publishers alike.’ Ann Rossiter, executive director at
SCONUL said: ‘It would be very short- sighted of publishers to seek to continue charging prices which were already subject to serious challenge on the basis of value, even before the current crisis. Universities want to a provide the maximum access to research outputs, but this cannot be at any cost. Companies which do not adapt to the post-Covid-19 reality will be judged harshly. It is time for publishers to bring prices into line with value, and rethink business models with a much stronger focus on service.’ Caren Milloy, Jisc’s director of licensing,
concluded: ‘While the response from publishers to our call for price reductions has been constructive, offers to implement a zero per cent price increase will not meet the need to reduce expenditure to the levels of cuts institutions are facing. Our negotiations would have been seeking a zero per cent price increases regardless. As in any business, libraries are now working to align costs against the prospective budgets that have been set. As we approach the renewal season for journal agreements, if a publisher has not provided a discount, their agreement will be top of the list for cancellation.’ Jisc asked major publishers to resubmit budget proposals for the next academic year before mid-August. The proposals were reviewed by a Jisc content expert group in early September, then circulated for wider consultation with universities.
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