Budapest Open Access Initiative Research Articles

Open Science: Challenges, Possible Solutions and the Way Forward

Everyone agrees that scientific communication should be free for all. Unfortunately, accessing publications from many reputed journals comes at a high cost—a cost that many researchers and institutions cannot afford. Although, open-access publication model is considered by many as a possible route to ensure that science is free for all; however, it is fraught with its own challenges. This review attempts at exploring the possibilities of keeping science accessible. Firstly, we re-visit the meaning of “open science” as a comprehensive concept which includes open source, data, access, resources, peer review etc. and not merely open access publication model. Next, we have discussed the global initiatives towards open access—the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, cOAlition S and its Plan S initiative, UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Following this we have included the various open access initiatives from India. In the next part, we have focused on problems with dissemination of scientific outcomes and the challenges associated with existing publication models. Finally, we explore the possible solutions to the existing challenges, which include promotion of pre-print servers and other ideas that we have detailed in the manuscript.

Open Access, Open Science, Open Data: How it Was and Where We are Going

Open Access to scientific information, transparency of research processes and data is one of the most important conditions for the progress of science and scientific communication, the basis of international collaboration of researchers globally. The COVID-19 global pandemic has once again highlighted the need for open, efficient and equal access to scientific information for researchers, regardless of geographical, gender or any other constraints, promoting the exchange of scientific knowledge and data, scientific cooperation and scientific decision-making, knowledge and open data. The Internet has radically changed scientific communication, particularly on the model of peer-reviewed scientific journals and the way readers find and access the scientific information. Digital access is now the norm, thanks to the Open Access model. Although 20 years have passed since the announcement of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and despite many achievements and advantages, there are still obstacles to the implementation of this model, there is some resistance from commercial publishers and other providers, and discussions continue in the academia world. The Open Access model is already supported by various strategies, policies, platforms, applications but is not yet established. Various business models for scientific journals are still being tested, a culture of preprints is being formed, and discussions are underway on the ethics of scientific publications, intellectual property, the need to finance the dissemination of research results, and so on. Various platforms and applications are being developed to help researchers “discover” research results. Nevertheless, this is not enough: it is important to “discover” not only the results but also the research data, allowing them be used for further research in the global world. Thus, the concepts and practices of Open Science, Open Data, development of research infrastructures, etc., are developing quite rapidly. The article considers the main stages of this 20-year path and outlines the main components and trends of the current stage. Emphasis is placed on the need to form a culture of Open Science and create incentives for its implementation, promoting innovative methods of Open Science at different stages of the scientific process, the needs of European integration of Ukrainian e-infrastructure development, the need for socio-cultural and technological change. The main international and domestic practices and projects in Open Access and Open Science, particularly the National Repository of Academic Texts and the National Plan of Open Science draft, are considered. The role of libraries and librarians in implementing the principles of Open Access and Open Science is emphasized.

Economic perspectives on the future of academic publishing: Introduction to the special issue

Economic perspectives on the future of academic publishing: Introduction to the special issue

ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF CLOUD-ORIENTED OPEN SCIENCE SYSTEMS IN THE DOMESTIC EDUCATIONAL SPACE

The Budapest Open Access Initiative and the Berlin Declaration are analyzed. The main provisions of the policy of the international movement for open access are given. One of the priorities of science development in Ukraine is integration into the European Research Area. 6 priorities of integration of Ukrainian science into the European Research Area are described. A survey of mathematics teachers of advanced training courses of Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University and students of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences in 2020-2021 academic year were conducted. The current state of the use of cloud-oriented systems of open science is clarified. The main factors to be considered for further implementation of these systems in teacher education and their ICT competence increase are identified.

Preprint as the Material for an Overlay Journal

The Open access movement has a long history. In 2002 the Budapest Open access initiative was first announced. However, the problem of Open access has not yet been fully and definitively resolved. In 2018 The European Union has adopted Plan S, which calls for making Open access a reality by 2020. Plan S emphasizes the importance of self-archiving of articles and the role of Preprint’s archives (servers) for scientific results placement. It is noted that Preprint archives have a great potential for editorial and publishing innovations. Scientific journals with limited reader access that operate on a commercial basis do not give up their positions. But even here we see some progress. Journals have become less rigid in their policy towards preprints and post-prints. More and more foreign scientists are becoming adherents of the "Fair open access" movement, which offers a new organizational solution. The journal must have a scientific organization or non-profit Foundation as a founder, that hires a group of executors to provide editorial and publishing services. Editors and publishers should not have their own commercial interests. The scientific journal should be funded from the general contribution of organizations. The article considers a modern type of online scientific journal — the overlay journal. The cost of an issue of the overlay journal is so low that the journal can easily implements the "free for the author, free for the reader" scheme. The overlay journal is based on the public servers of preprints. The online overlay journal reviews the article received from the archive. If the article is accepted for publication, the article metadata is published on the journal website, and the full text of corrected article is re-archived. This way of working does not overload the archive functionality, but it allows to reduce the financial burden on the overlay journal.

Концептуальні засади формування державної політики відкритої науки та роль громадянського суспільства в її становленні

Problem setting. In the countries of the European Research Area, the formation of public policies of Open Science is actively taking place. For Ukraine, the relevance of public open science policy is determined by Ukraine's involvement in the European Research Area which is impossible without synchronizing the formation of new and adaptation of existing public policies, including in the field of science. This causes the need for research in the field of open science, and in particular the existing practices of formation and implementation of relevant public policies in the European and world research areas.Recent research and publications analysis. General issues of open science and open data are often considered in the publications of such Ukrainian and foreign scientists as T. Yaroshenko, I. Kuchma, O. Chmyr, Mirowski P. and others. At the same time, it should be noted that the issue of public policy of open science is rarely considered by Ukrainian scientists.The paper objective is theoretical substantiation of conceptual bases of establishment and realization of the public open science policy.The paper main body. The article considers the establishment of the open science paradigm as the initial stage of formation of the relevant policy. The role and place of such a civil society institution as professional associations in this process is demonstrated. The analysis of three main open science documents— Declaration of Budapest Open Access Initiative, Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing and Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities — was carried out. The existing problems on the way to ensuring openness in the scientific sphere are considered, as well as possible ways to solve them. The role of the Internet and one of the types of e-infrastructures, namely repositories, in the actual implementation of open science policy is noted.Conclusions of the research. In the formation of the paradigm of open science and, as a consequence, the policy of open science at the national and international levels, a key role was played by such an institution of civil society as professional associations. It was the efforts of professional activists (scientists, publishers, librarians, grant providers, employees of higher education institutions, etc.) for the first time formulated the basic definitions of open science and open access as part of it, outlined areas of action and examples of necessary measures new knowledge. Such dissemination of knowledge cannot be considered effective if the information does not become widely and permanently available to all stakeholders.Given that research is an interdependent process in which new work is largely based on the results of previous scientific advances, the first documents relating to open science addressed first the issue of access to academic texts and scientific data, and the second - to cultural heritage sites, etc. The issue of access to the means of obtaining a scientific result (for example, to research infrastructures) at the initial stage of formation of the paradigm of open science was not considered. In addition, the issue of openness of science can be considered both universal (BIVD Declaration, Berlin Declaration) and professional (Bethesda statement, which emphasized the biomedical field of research).The driving force for the emergence and evolution of the paradigm of open science was the development of total internetization in the early 2000s, which allowed to obtain any information, including scientific, from anywhere on the planet under two conditions: access to the Internet and the absence of artificial barriers to accessing the information itself.The main obstacles in the way, according to the three documents discussed above, are financial (compensation for publishers who switch to open access, which mainly fell on the shoulders of the authors of publications), legal (copyright) and technical (network access). Internet and the availability of online repositories with unified algorithms). Accordingly, the way out of the situation is to provide reasonable benefits and funds for the publication of academic texts and research data in open access to research estimates, references to copyright only to ensure proper recognition, and the creation of an appropriate system of online repositories and public access. to the Internet.An essential common feature of the three documents discussed above is the emphasis on the need to consider and take into account the content and substantive contribution of the published academic text, rather than the prestige or reputation of the publication in which it is published, when evaluating a scientist or considering his candidacy. promotion. In addition, it is important to treat the publication of works in open access as proof of community service (by analogy with the attitude to volunteering in other areas of life).Activists who laid the foundations of the open science paradigm relied primarily not on the centralized formulation and implementation of relevant policies (as was the case in 2010), but on educational activities among stakeholders on the benefits of publishing their research results in open access.

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING: ISSUES OF THE COMPLIANCE WITH COPYRIGHT

The author in the article explores the issues of using publications available in Open Access on the digital network. The article describes the definition of the term «Open Access». This concept is based on the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2012) — this document contains one of the most widely used definitions of Open Access. The basic features of this term are established.A comparison is made between the free (fair) use of works and the use of publications available in Open Access. The difference between these concepts are established.The use of publications available in Open Access, except for works that have become public domain, may not be copyright free. Moral rights are reserved by the authors, and property rights belong to the person who acquired them in accordance with the law or the contract. These rights must be adhered when publishing and using this publication available in Open Access. The use of the term «Open» does not mean unlimited access to the works.The article explores that Open Access publishing is possible if there are not legal, financial, technical obstacles. It has been proven that overcoming these obstacles is directly or indirectly related to the need for compliance copyright law.The article explores the problematic issues of authors' payment for article publishing charge and the use of publications available in Open Access (Article processing charge) and ways solution these issues.This article gives an overview of examples of contracts where publication fees are paid not by institutional authors but by interested organizations. The article explores the different types of contracts that can be concluded when publishing works and the use of publications available in the Open Access. In particular, the agreements of the rights transfer, the public licenses for Creative Commons.Generally, the use of a published work may be permitted subject to the conditions, defined by the person, who has the exclusive right under law or contract to permission the use of the work, and may determine the conditions of access to that work. The article argues that the key issue is the compliance of copyright for works that are created, published, and made available to the public online under the Open Access. The author analyzes the others issues of application of the legislation in the sphereof copyright, gives examples from practices.

Public Digital Estate: Role of Commons in Legal Education and Research

With the advancement of technology, world witnessed rapid growth of research and development activities. Research and development activities ensued in huge literature outcome. Invention of internet and World Wide Web reduced distances among scientific institutions around the world. Research, education and policy making institutions started sharing scholarly and literary outcome around the world. Great initiatives like Budapest Open Access Initiative, Bethesda Statement and Berlin Declaration played important role in open access movement of digital information. Montreal Declaration during Law Via Internet Conference in 2002 resulted in dawning era for Free Access to Law Movement around the world. In 2010, Durham Statement adopted by law librarians of Law Schools at United States of America, is also counted an important development where all law librarians agreed to facilitate access of law reviews in open access to cut printing cost and greater accessibility of the scholarly articles published in law reviews. UNESCO guidelines for public government information also supported free access to governmental information to public which involves public money. The topic of the book “Public Digital Estate” is actually a combined idea of both the author based on the English law term used for copyright left or without copyright work “Public Domain”. Reveal their motivation and inspiration for writing the book. The idea of the book is based on our experiences gained working for law libraries since last fifteen years. Currently India has more than 2000 academic institutions including law universities, departments, affiliated colleges and research institutions. Uneven distribution of financial allocation for law libraries has made greater difference between institutional outcomes. Centrally and few state funded institutions facilitated access of legal information through subscription based databases, however, majority of law libraries have inadequate sources of information. The book is actually being coined for law students, faculty members, research scholars and law libraries in need of extensive research assistance. The idea of the book was not new and spontaneously conceived but a result of long journey of research to tag most authentic, reliable and scholarly assets available in public digital estate. We have contrived to compile this book to collate all best possible free access information including judgements, legislative material, parliamentary documents, law journals and scholarships and books. The book contains ten chapters based on intensive research done on timeline of public domain and open access initiatives around the world. First chapter propounds explanation of public domain, open access, evaluation of open access resources and explanation of relevant terms. Public digital asset or public domain is a term basically used and related to copyright laws. Though in second chapter, copyright laws under the regime of open access around the world and India, and creative common licences, is set forth. A timeline describing brief development of public domain and open access initiatives around the world is peddled for wider understanding and bridging relevance of initiatives in third chapter. Next six chapters postulate public domain legal resources around the world pertaining to parliamentary resources, legislative resources, judicial resources, law reform resources, journals and scholarship, and open access books. In the last chapter open access initiatives in India and various public domain resources useful for legal education and research are posited. We have tried over best to cope up best and scholarly resources available in public domain or open access for law students, faculty and research scholars. Statistical data upto year 2020 has been incorporated in the book. We hope the book would be beneficial not only for law students, faculty, and law librarians in India but also to overseas scholars. Electronic Books and journal databases are also useful for scholarly communities from verity of subject areas including science, humanities, technologies and social science. Corrections and suggestions are welcomed for incorporation in next edition. Full text is available at: https://archive.org/details/public-digital-estate-online-single-page

The International Open Access Movement and Its Status in Pakistan

The objective of this study is to analyze the present status of the open access movement in Pakistan, identify challenges, and make recommendations for the effective use of this publishing model. The article looks primarily at the open access movement in Asia, with special reference to Pakistan, India, and China. Findings show that, since the emergence of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2001, the open access movement has developed rapidly at the international level. From the Pakistani perspective, gold open access, in which articles or monographs are freely available in their original form on publishers' websites, developed quickly. However, green open access, which relies on authors to self-archive their articles in institutional or subject repositories, has been relatively slow to develop. A lack of support from educational institutions, libraries, library associations, and funding bodies may explain the slow growth of green open access in Pakistan. The author recommends that Pakistani universities, research institutions, and funding agencies develop open access policies, set up institutional repositories, and encourage publishing in open access journals and self-archiving in institutional repositories.

The future of academic publishing: disruption, opportunity and a new ecosystem.

It is not a hyperbole to say that the foundations of academic publishing are in a state of large‐scale disruption. That this disruption remains largely under the surface is primarily because the main users of academic research — those who work at universities — rarely suffer the consequences of lack of access due to the substantial payments universities make for subscription journals (about $281 million in total in Australia in 2017).1 Outside of universities, however, gaining online access to published research legally is neither easy nor affordable. Furthermore, as we move towards an interconnected digital future, it is becoming increasingly obvious that a system whose core business model rests on controlling access is an anachronism. On the surface, the principles of publishing academic research ought to be obvious. Research is not a “nice to have” type of information. Academic research underpins health care decisions, the development of public policy, innovation, and the generation of new knowledge. In today's interconnected world, access should mean much more than just availability to read, it also means the ability to link, mine and otherwise reuse research content through open licensing practices, as defined by a series of declarations in the early 21st century, most notably by the Budapest Open Access Initiative.2

The History, Deployment, and Future of Institutional Repositories in Public Universities in South Africa

This paper investigates the history, deployment, and content of institutional repositories (IRs) in public universities in South Africa. Some of the local, national and international drivers and enablers that ensure the establishment and survival of the institutional repositories are identified. Lastly, an attempt is made to determine the future of the IRs. Findings include that South African universities were among the first universities in the world to host IRs with the first IR established in 2000. The most prevalent and dominant content in South African public university collections are electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). There are signs that this is changing as more libraries cover research outputs emanating from the universities. African languages are sparsely represented in IRs in South Africa. The majority of universities in the country signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, and the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Many of them do not have their own open access policy. The driving factors include the decline in government subsidy, increase in journal subscriptions, depreciation of the South African currency, and addition of the Value Added Tax (VAT) of 14% on electronic resources by the South Africa taxman while the enabling factors include the international open access mandates, the Carnegie Foundation grants, and the National Research Foundation's statement on open access.

Fundamentals of Open Access

This paper provides a background to open access, examines what is it and how it came about. It provides an analysis of the fundamentals of open access against the provisions of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and examines the barriers to open access, (price, technology and legal). It also looks at some of the fields related to open access such as, open educational resources and public sector information. The final section of the paper examines strategies to achieving open access and concludes with licensing, focusing on creative commons.

Open Access zwischen Revolution und Goldesel

ZusammenfassungDie Erklärungen und Positionierungen zu Open Access anfangs der 2000er Jahre waren von Umbruchstimmung, Euphorie und Idealismus getragen, eine Revolution des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens wurde vielfach vorhergesagt. Die Erwartungen an Open Access lagen auf der Hand und waren umrissen: Wissenschaftlern war an rascher Verbreitung ihrer eigenen Texte gelegen sowie an der Verfügbarkeit der Texte ihrer Kollegen, Bibliothekaren an einer Abhilfe für stark steigende Journalpreise, den Wissenschaftseinrichtungen an effizienter und freier Verbreitung ihrer Inhalte. Einzig die Position der kommerziellen Wissenschaftsverlage zu Open Access war überwiegend zögerlich bis ablehnend. Der Artikel versucht sich 15 Jahre nach dem Treffen der Budapest Open Access Initiative 2001 an einer Bilanz zum Open Access. 2016 muss festgehalten werden, dass die von den maßgeblichen Open-Access-Advokaten früherer Tage erhoffte Revolution wohl ausbleiben wird. Vielmehr scheint aktuell die Entwicklung des Open Access weitgehend von den vormals in Open-Access-Szenarien kaum erwähnten kommerziellen Verlagen angetrieben. Zwar findet sich auch Open Access in wissenschaftlicher Selbstverwaltung, dennoch bleiben die Akteure im wissenschaftlichen Publizieren bislang die gleichen wie 2001 und die schon damals bekannten Konzentrationseffekte am Publikationsmarkt setzen sich fort.

Open access in the world and Latin America: A review since the Budapest Open Access Initiative

Abstract In 2012, the Open Access Movement to scientific information celebrated ten years of existence. The period, which represents the first stage of consolidation of the movement, has been analyzed to allow the planning of new phases. With the purpose of providing tools and contributing to these discussions, the article addresses the historical aspects of the international and regional constitution of Open Access Movement. The approach was developed from a descriptive temporal narrative of the main events and initiatives identified in the scientific literature on the subject. The elements discussed in the present study work were organized under two parameters. The first refers to a temporal perspective, defined from the publication of Budapest Open Access Initiative. The second is related to brief discussion of the participation of Latin America. As result, we present a timeline of open access in the world and in Latin America, showing the main aspects covered in the study. The goal of the study is achieved by the proposed systematization as we analyze the open access initiatives in Latin America and establish how they influenced and were influenced by other regions of the world.

Open access – deus ex machina for publishing scholarly journals?

The article describes the evolution of scholarly communication through scholarly journals. It gives a short overview of the historical development, starting from the first journals in the 17th century to problems in the 20th century (such as increase in the number of journals, problems of accessibility, visibility, and journal access crisis). The open access (OA) movement is described. It arose from the “old tradition” facing new technologies and was supposed to be the solution to the journal crisis that culminated in 1990s. The idea, defined in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, was to assure free and unrestricted online availability of peer-reviewed journal literature. The beginnings of formal scholarly communication, back in 1665, had similar ideas of making research results available to the widest possible public. The idea was excellent – removing access barriers would increase visibility, impact and quality of research. Research has shown that OA articles have better impact and visibility (Lawrence, Brody, Harnad, Haajem, etc.). However, publishing scientific information has its costs. New models have been developed, some of them causing new restrictions and barriers. The most popular model is the author-pays model (article processing charges, APC) – if authors can afford to pay the processing charges, their work is published and thus more visible and more citable. However, if they cannot, a new problem arises – some research results, although valuable, are not published in open access and therefore they have lower visibility and impact. Another problem is the phenomenon of the so-called predatory publishers. Those publishers use the APC model but neglect quality control mechanisms in order to make profit. Their criteria for publishing are not positive peer-reviews but payments made by authors or their institutions. Predatory publishers’ practices are not only unethical, but also illegal, and they are a great threat to the development of science. New questions have arisen lately - has OA movement achieved its goal, has it evolved in the way it was supposed to, was it really dues ex machina for publishing scholarly journals, i.e. did it solve the access crisis. In conclusion, it is proposed that the solution to the problem of predatory publishers could be the development of a new set of information literacy skills that are based on finding, evaluating and properly using OA information. Universities and academic libraries should play an important role in developing those skills and competencies.

Editorial: Participatory Public Education’a cosmopolitan approach to social and environmental justice

This Journal is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers.Our open access policy is in in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

Multicultural Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Education Research: From Clash of civilisations to Co-creation and Co-determination

The Journal is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers.Our open access policy is in in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

Retaking Responsibility for How We Communicate. A Review of Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future

Since the publication of the Budapest Open Access Initiative statement in 2002, Open Access has grown from an ideal to a reality. Open Access and the Humanities explores scholarly practices, communications, and cultures in light of this change and argues that humanists can and should retake responsibility for how they chose to publish.

The Impact of Open Access on Collection Management

Open access (OA) is a relatively new concept in the long history of published scholarly communication. Although there were already some open access journals in 2002, many point to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) held in that year as the beginning point of the “open access movement.” The BOAI called for freely available literature which permits “users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.” 1 Since the BOAI, the open access movement has continued to grow and change, and in 2013 David Lewis predicted that over the next ten years, OA would “become the dominant mode for scholarly journal publishing” and recommended that academic libraries “continue to support open access initiatives: institutional deposit mandates; support for open access journals; or funding of open access author fees.” 2 Collection management was also expanding in the 2000s with the addition of access management: the need to facilitate effective and efficient access to electronic materials while still managing physical collections. 3 In 2011 Emilie Delquie asked if the philosophy of collection management was evolving from just collecting information to “‘hooking’ users up with information?” 4 This article examines if and how the integration of OA materials has changed collection and/or access management activities within academic libraries.

Much Obliged: Analyzing the Importance and Impact of Acknowledgements in Scholarly Communication

According to Robin P. Peek, co-founder of the Open Access Directory and associate professor at the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science, scholarly communication through the dissemination of journals was first reported in 1665 (Peek & Newby, 1996, p. 5). However, it took 337 years for the scholarly community to formalize a global initiative declaring research a public good, with unrestricted, free access for everyone. The 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative ushered in a paradigm shift in the way scholars create and share knowledge. The launch of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in 2003 formalized an alternative venue for scholars to publish their work. From 2004 to 2010, the number of titles listed in the DOAJ rose from 1,250 to more than 5,200(Walters & Linvill, 2010, p. 372). Today, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) continues to work as a catalyst for new models of scholarly communication, working in the fields of author rights, digital repositories, and open data.As the model of scholarly communication evolves and shifts, so too has the field of bibliometrics. The Open Citation Project, a joint NSF-JISC International Digital Libraries Research Programme funded initiative, has been analyzing citation counts in open access repositories, impact factors of open access journals, and the role of preprints in the dissemination of knowledge since 1999. The growing field of altmetrics is currently developing alternative models to traditional citation indices, such as the h-index, and beginning to study the role of Zotero and Mendeley within the context of scholarly communication. These new approaches to scholarly metrics are uncovering the broad intellectual networks contributing to a single journal article, well beyond the bibliography. As a corollary, the persistent myth of the lone scholar working in a silent, secluded office surrounded by books and articles is slowly eroding.Academic libraries have been at the center of many of these endeavors, often pushing open access initiatives on their campuses, building digital repositories, hosting Zotero workshops for faculty and students, and assisting scholars in negotiating author rights for their work. Libraries are pivotal nodes in almost every intellectual network. However, even with the development of new metrics in paratextual evaluation, the work of libraries and librarians continues to be obscured. This is because the libraries lurk in the most overlooked paratextual element: the acknowledgement.What this paper argues is that the acknowledgments are a crucial but overlooked aspect of scholarly communication and bibliometrics. Not only would a comprehensive analysis of acknowledgements provide a more accurate description of intellectual networks, further eroding the myth of the lone scholar, but it would also quantify and illuminate the importance of libraries and librarians in the scholarly communication process. As a corollary, tenure-track librarians should include research acknowledgments in tenure and promotion reports in order to demonstrate their contributions to scholarship.History of Paratextual ScholarshipThere has been a growing interest in the paratextual elements of scholarly communication in the last decade. Formal elements of documentation, footnotes and citations in particular, have become the subject of entire treatises on expressions of intellectual debt.(Grafton, 1997; Hauptman, 2008; Zerby, 2002). Marginalia, written comments or annotations in the margins of manuscripts, in addition, have been examined quite thoroughly by H.J. Jackson's Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books (Jackson, 2001). Scholars in this field have largely focused on the functional attributes of paratextual elements as expressions of intellectual debt. As Sir Anthony Grafton writes about the use of footnotes in historical scholarship, First, they persuade: they convince the reader that the historian has done an acceptable amount of work, enough to lie within the tolerance of the field. …