SCONUL Study Tour

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SCONUL Study Tour

• Blake Library
• University Of Technology, Sydney
• Thursday 8th September 2005

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Program

• 9.00am 9.30am Welcome, overview, IFLAs
  interest in scholarly communication (Alex Byrne)
• 9.30am 10.00am Increasing return on investment
  in information resources (Ann Flynn Carol
  Scott)
• 10.00am 10.30am Changing the dynamics of
  scholarly communication - UTSePress Systrum
  (Fides Lawton)
• 10.30am 10.45am Introduction to UTS Structure
  Library Managers
• 10.45am 11.15am Morning tea with Library
  Managers

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Program

• 11.15am 12.00pm New models of information
  services(Sally Scholfield Pamela Leuzinger)
• 12.00pm 12.30pm Exposing Australian and New
  Zealand Postgraduate Research ADT (Tony
  Cargnelutti Andrew Wells)
• 12.30pm 1.00pm Challenges at UNSW (Andrew
  Wells)
• 1.00pm 1.45pm Lunch with UTS UNSW Library
  Managers
• 1.45pm 2.30pm Staffing for the future(Fides
  Lawton, Alex Byrne Andrew Wells)

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Dinner

• 7.00pm Dinner with Unison members (University
  Librarians in NSW ACT) at
• Waterfront Restaurant, 19 Hickson Road, The
  Rocks
• Suggest walk to Darling Harbour, take a ferry to
  Circular Quay, then visit the Rocks before dinner

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High impact scholarly literature

• Historically has mostly been published in
  northern Europe and the United States
• Others benefit because of affinities of language
  or history (Australia, Canada) or efforts to
  participate (Japan)
• Many virtually excluded

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Exacerbated through commodification

• Control of high impact journals by major
  commercial publishing houses
• Surrender of control and intellectual property by
  scholars
• High costs and continuing price increases for
  libraries

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Consequences

• Frustration
• Brain drain
• Revenue flows to North
• Research funding immeasurably better in North
• Research from South only validated if published
  in North and usually peer reviewed in North
• Capture of knowledge from South by North

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Scholarly publishing system

• Self reinforcing system
• Research
• Peer review
• Journals
• Databases (especially ISI)
• Research money
• Scholarship
• Research

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The criterion

• If scholarly publishing is to work it must work
  for scholars and researchers and peoples
  across the world

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Current scholarly publication system - advantages

• Significant levels of expertise and investment
• High levels of quality assurance despite some
  concerns about peer review system
• Advanced services such as Web of Knowledge,
  SciFinder
• Secure systems

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Scholarly publication - broader issues

• Surrender of intellectual property by researchers
  and scholars
• Weakening of public domain under current trends
  in IP law
• Exacerbated in the digital environment thorough
  licensing

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Scholarly publication broader issues

• Archiving preservation have not been solved
• Cannot rely on publishers preservation is our
  responsibility
• Many integration issues not resolved
  interfaces, standards, etc
• Standards (eg Z39.50, HTML, XML, OpenURL) not
  fully observed
• Difficulty in using portals
• Instability in both content and presentation

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What is to be done?

• How can we ensure that our faculty and students
  will have the access they need to the worlds
  scientific, technological and other literature?
• How can we work together to create the conditions
  for successful implementation of digital
  libraries and the preservation of scholarly
  literature and research documentation?

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The open access movement

• Enabling the academy to reclaim its scholarly
  literature and challenge the commercialised
  publishing paradigms that have arisen over the
  last thirty years.
• Gained force due to advocates esp. Stevan Harnad
  http//www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/intpub.html
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in
  the Sciences and Humanities 2003,
  http//www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindecl
  aration.html

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IFLA

• IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly
  Literature and Research Documentation, The Hague,
  IFLA, 2003
• http//www.ifla.org/V/cdoc/open-access04.html

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IFLA Statement

• Supports open access publishing
• But in a broader context

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IFLA Statement

• Acknowledgement and defence of moral rights of
  authors
• Adoption of effective peer review processes to
  ensure quality

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IFLA Statement

• Protection of to the public domain IFLA/CLM
• Opposition to governmental, commercial or
  institutional censorship IFLA/FAIFE

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IFLA Statement

• Implementation of measures to overcome
  information inequality IFLA/ALP
• Implementation of mechanisms to ensure
  preservation and perpetual availability IFLA/PAC

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UTS initiatives

• UTSePress and Systrum (http//epress.lib.uts.edu.a
  u)

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UTS initiatives

• Australian Digital Theses Program
• Institutional repository
• Portal a multidisciplinary journal of
  international studies (http//epress.lib.uts.edu.a
  u/journals/portal)
• New titles in the humanities and IT

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Systrum

• An inclusive, collaborative e-publishing
  initiative
• Scaleable and open to large and small
  institutions
• Federated searching
• Builds on expertise and infrastructure of
  UTSePress
• Advice and assistance during the establishment
  phase
• Consultancy on major projects
• Joint applications for funding

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Other Australian Initiatives

• ARROW http//arrow.edu.au
• APSR (Australian Partnerships for Sustainable
  Repositories) http//apsr.edu.au
• Australian Scholarly Publishers' Roundtable

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• Thank you
• Alex Byrne
• alex.byrne_at_uts.edu.au