LIBER 2021 - Panel Discussion: How libraries and consortia can support the OA transitions of not-for-profit publishers, and why

Transformative OA agreements repurpose former subscription funds to support open access publishing, enabling more research to be published openly. How can open access and open science be advanced further? An expert panel will provide important insights into future directions and opportunities for further collaboration between libraries, funders, and not-for-profit publishers, and will highlight the most effective models for driving compliance, cost restraint, diversity, and open access. Following the validation of transformative agreements as a viable and essential strategy to accelerate the open access transition at the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference, there has been an explosion in both their numbers and varieties. At least twelve types of transformative agreement operate in the market today, and five of these types have emerged only in the last year. Given the dynamism in the market, we anticipate further models and configurations to emerge. In their most successful iterations they are structured in ways that constrain costs, diversify the publishing landscape, and position libraries to invest in research support. In this early phase of the transition, the majority of transformative agreements negotiated have involved the largest publishers rather than smaller society publishers, university and library presses, and born-OA houses. Special challenges and opportunities arise when exploring and entering into these agreements with the long tail of more mission-focussed publishing organisations, as highlighted in recent research undertaken for cOAlition S as a follow-up to the Society Publishers Accelerating Open access and Plan S project. Panel participants have been involved in these initiatives and will share their different but complementary perspectives. We’ll share ideas for how libraries and consortia can engage effectively with this long tail of publishers while juggling the priority attention required by Covid 19 driven changes to the economy. The long tail of publishers is very, very long indeed and no library has time and resources to manage this by themselves even in the best economy. There are ways to overcome challenges and realise opportunities, for example in the way these agreements are entered into, funded, operationalised, and scaled internationally, so as to minimise administration and reapportion and rebalance costs between countries and institutions. As with all transitions, the middle ground is uncomfortable and requires significant effort and creativity, but by focusing on the shared objective of an open scholarly communication system we can refine our transformative agreement strategies through partnership among all stakeholders, transparency, and trust