The Role of the Librarian in an
Open Access World
Ellen Finnie Duranceau
Scholarly Publishing & Licensing
Consultant
MIT Libraries
BioMed Central
Consultation Workshop 5/21/07
MIT Librarians & Open Access: Outline
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Context and Mission
The view from 3,000 feet:
New activities
New positions
Implications
MIT Context: Culture of Openness
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Commitment to “generating, disseminating, and
preserving knowledge, and to working with others to
bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great
challenges.”
Mission directly related to widest dissemination
Expressions of this culture
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OpenCourseWare
Dspace
W3C
Free Software Movement
MIT Libraries’ Mission:
Evolution with Open Access
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Current (2003): The mission of
the MIT libraries is to create
and sustain an intuitive,
trusted information
environment that enables
learning and the advancement
of knowledge at MIT. We are
committed to developing
strategies and systems that
promote discovery and
facilitate worldwide scholarly
communication.
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1999: The MIT Libraries are
creative partners in the research
and learning process. We
select, organize, present, and
preserve information
resources relevant to
education and research at
MIT. We sustain these worldclass resources and provide
quality services …. We build
intellectual connections among
these resources and educate
the MIT community in the
effective use of information. We
want to be the place people in
the MIT community think of
first when they need
information.
Key Changes In How We Describe
Mission
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Creating and sustaining a trusted
information environment
Developing strategies and systems that
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promote discovery
facilitate worldwide scholarly communication
Consistent with OA world
New Activities
Facilitate Worldwide Scholarly
Communication: IRs, Hosting Content
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Institutional repository: Dspace
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Beginning of shift from libraries purchasing content toward
libraries offering their institution’s content to the world
Efforts in development, marketing, metadata, workflows
Hosting content:
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Supporting publication/archiving of open access journal
within libraries: partnership with faculty
Exploring archiving partnership with university press
Preprint site: partnership with faculty
Creating and managing digital collections
Facilitate Worldwide Scholarly
Communication: Authors’ rights
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New support for authors in relation to rights
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Publishing choices
Publishing agreements
Posting to optimize citation, dissemination
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Partner with intellectual property counsel, intellectual
property committee
Partner with sponsored research (funder requirements)
Facilitate Worldwide Scholarly
Communication: Influencing Purchasing &
Business Models
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No single model to support in near term: variety of roles
– Maintaining advocacy for Fair Use principles; push back on
DRM, restrictive licenses and purchase models
– Exploring value based pricing
– License negotiation and standards
 SERU / NISO
– Support/initiate dialog with campus administration
 Analysis of business/cost models in OA arena
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Partnering with administration
Funder requirements
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Partnering with sponsored research
Strategies and Systems that Promote
Discovery
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Evaluating, developing, investing in value-added discovery
& delivery tools, especially open source tools
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Looking at:
Data mining & analysis
Social software
Filtering, aggregating tools
Metadata Creation and Management
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Looking at:
Author name mapping
Version identification and linking
User generated content
Create and Sustain Trusted
Information Environment
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Define, evaluate, invest in qualified archiving
solutions
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Concept of Trusted Archive
Portico, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS
IRs
Create, Identify, Store metadata on trusted
archive for digital content
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title or even article level
Create and Sustain Trusted
Information Environment
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Teaching / Instruction
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Evaluating sources
Using discovery tools to best advantage
Integration with courses / online tutorials
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Partnerships with faculty
Developing software tools that meet social
networking [trust] needs
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Betas page http://libraries.mit.edu/help/betas/
Open source sharing among libraries/universities
New Positions
New/changed librarian positions since
Budapest OA Initiative
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Role expansion seen in new positions
From 2002-2007
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14 librarian positions redefined (roughly 20%)
Headcount repurposed, not increased,
except:
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2 new FTEs added
0.5 FTE funded by provost
Position changes in MIT Libraries:
21st century Librarian Roles
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Research Group – new group (2002+)
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Images librarian (2003)
GIS librarian (c 2004)
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Design and develop tools to support discovery
New vision of role of librarian on campus: research partner,
innovator
Partnerships with CS department, Information Services
Train in GIS tools, support GIS service – purchase only part of
picture
Data librarian / social sciences focus (c2004)
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Offer access to & support for data sets, whether OA or purchased
Position changes in MIT Libraries:
21st century Librarian Roles
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Changes in traditional subject specialist role: beyond
‘collection development’ in a subject discipline
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Computer science: add interactive research component,
working with faculty to operationalize research (2005)
Add internet tools development specialty (2005)
Add intensive instruction component, working with faculty to
devise online course-based tutorials (2006)
Civil & Env. eng., add GIS responsibilities (c2005)
Associate head, engineering library, refocus from circ/access
to outreach program (2006)
All changes are relevant to OA world
Position changes in MIT Libraries:
21st century Librarian Roles
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Information services librarian for engineering & science (2005)
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Metadata specialist (2005)
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Support author rights, goal of making MIT’s research more widely available
Partner with institutional research, sponsored research, univ. press, faculty, sponsored research
Dspace [IR] product manager (2007)
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Build new systems, particularly for more open access to theses
Scholarly publishing consultant (2006)
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Support OA activities like MIT’s OpenCourseWare
Participate in campus-wide initiatives related to digital content, not purchased content
Digital products manager (2005)
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Deemphasize ‘collections’ and even ‘reference’ – focus on services, tools
Promote use of OA repository and develop features
Associate director, collection services/ change to include systems
management (2007)
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Beyond building collections: systems, services, technology in relation to content
Implications
Role of Librarian in Open Access
World: Expanding, Deepening
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Fundamentals don’t change
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Move toward OA has led to new, deepened partnerships on campus
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Support university in mission of “generating, disseminating, and preserving
knowledge”
Sponsored research
Institutional research
Intellectual property
University press
Faculty
Information services
Partners in facilitating worldwide scholarly communication in a trusted
information environment
Librarians more at the center of the campus than when our gateways
and collections were the only game in town
Librarian’s Role in OA World?
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“I thought the faculty committee on the library
system would be three years of dry drudgery.
But it turns out librarians in their new role are
now located at the center of the most
contentious and important issues of the day.”
--faculty member, 2007