Open Access Initiatives Research Articles

Counterpoints about predatory open access and knowledge publishing in Africa

The promise of open access (OA) as a replacement for existing scientific information dissemination ethos and practice has been contentious, with the interests of different stakeholders – countries, publishers, and OA activists, among others – clashing on an unprecedented scale. This paper examines some of the challenges that have been triggered by the OA movement, particularly at the Africa regional level. Basically, OA is technology heavy and its economic arrangements benefit mainly the developed world. There is evidence of OA initiatives in Africa, but these initiatives are mainly individually based, defragmented, and largely underdeveloped, and sometimes predatory. This author argues that policy-makers in Africa need to embrace OA and establish useful policies – for regional journals and regional repositories and for academic reward, and support this with technical investment to enable quality online publishing.

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. …

Open access behaviours and perceptions of health sciences faculty and roles of information professionals.

This study sought to investigate the faculty's awareness, attitudes and use of open access, and the role of information professionals in supporting open access (OA) scholarly communication in Tanzanian health sciences universities. A cross-sectional survey was conducted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 librarians, while questionnaires were physically distributed to 415 faculty members in all eight Tanzanian health sciences universities, with a response rate of 71.1%. The study found that most faculty members were aware about OA issues. However, the high level of OA awareness among faculty members did not translate into actual dissemination of faculty's research outputs through OA web avenues. A small proportion of faculty's research materials was made available as OA. Faculty were more engaged with OA journal publishing than with self-archiving practices. Senior faculty with proficient technical skills were more likely to use open access than junior faculty. Major barriers to OA usage were related to ICT infrastructure, awareness, skills, author-pay model, and copyright and plagiarism concerns. Interviews with librarians revealed that there was a strong support for promoting OA issues on campus; however, this positive support with various open access-related tasks did not translate into actual action. It is thus important for librarians and OA administrators to consider all these factors for effective implementation of OA projects in research and academic institutions. This is the first comprehensive and detailed study focusing on the health sciences faculty's and librarians' behaviours and perceptions of open access initiatives in Tanzania and reveals findings that are useful for planning and implementing open access initiatives in other institutions with similar conditions.

Creative Commons and Open Access initiatives: how to stay sane and influence people

Broadening access to the wealth of material held within the archives of galleries and museums has been a long-term goal for many arts institutions, with large-scale digitization projects gathering pace. Concerns regarding copyright, however, have often been cited1 as a barrier to sharing and reuse, and a point of confl ict between user and creator communities. Tate is currently embarked upon the digitization and public release of 52,000 items within its archives including, where possible, releasing material under a Creative Commons licence. What makes the project's scope unique is that the vast majority of the material is still within copyright, providing valuable insights into how the law, Creative Commons and differing community agendas can interact productively to secure public access whilst still respecting rights holders. The article seeks to demonstrate that, for all the importance of legal considerations, relationship management is key not only to best practice but to securing the goals of Open Access.

India's Contribution to Open Access Movement

Open access (OA) publishing model fosters growth of research and development activities in academic and research institutes. The study identifes the major OA initiatives in India. It was found that 105 Indian repositories are listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), constituting 3% of the total. The top 10 countries collectively produced 1,146,187 (63.4%) OA papers. Brazil has the maximum share of publications, 335,590 (18.6%), followed by United Kingdom 193,309 (10.7%), United States 115,078 (6.4%), India 94,156 (5.2%). India publishes 595 OA journals and is ranked fourth in the world. The maximum OA journals are on medicine and majority of journals are in English 584 (97.8%). Indian researchers have been ranked eighth in research publications with 351 (3.6%) papers. Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is the leading institution in publishing research on OA. s, Arunachalam, from M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai is the most prolifc Indian author publishing research on OA with 10 (2.8%) papers.

Cost of Open access publishing in the light of global developments in scholarly publishing: Springer’s Open access initiative

>> See video of presentation (25 min.)BioMed Central is the open access publisher who pioneered this publishing model and has been part of Springer since 2008. We launched our first journal in the year 2000, and have since seen several positive global developments which have helped establish open access as an important trend in the evolvement of scholarly communication. We have consequently observed a steady increase in awareness of open access and specifically, of our wide range of specialist as well as broad interest titles which is reflected in our growing submission numbers.BioMed Central as one of the main open access publishers has helped to establish open access as a new way of making academic research available to researchers and the public, and to introduce a change of the subscription business model in academic publishing and libraries. While BioMed Central also offers a solution for the Green Route of open access (“Open Repository”) the main part of our publishing activity is centred around our fully or “gold” open access journals. BioMed Central and SpringerOpen practise the “author pays” model, whereby the author is asked to pay a fee to cover the publisher’s cost of publishing and distributing the article. While the awareness of open access is growing among the academics, there is still uncertainty among many of how open access works and why they are asked to pay a fee. To cover that fee can still be a major obstacle for a researcher attempting to publish an article in an open access journal, as the SOAP report stated in 2011.I will present an analysis of the most recent open access developments and studies globally; as well as the effect that this has had on a number of factors that play a role in scholarly publishing, such as Impact Factors, citations and awareness of open access among academics. I will give an update on BioMed Central and Springer’s own development in the arena of open access and visibility of research, including experimenting with alternative methods of evaluating research such as Altmetric and the SCImago Journal & Country Rank. I will conclude with an overview of how we are working with research organisations and universities to offer financial support to their researchers in order to cover the fee for publishing in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals in the context of our institutional membership program.

OA Article Charges: Good Business, Bad Business, or Just More Business?

The author argues that it is not cost-effective for libraries to pay open access (OA) article charges. The author explains how OA charges will become a supplementary cost for libraries if they decide to pay for individual articles authored on their campus to be published OA. The author suggests a prudent approach for libraries to support OA initiatives.

Should We be More "Open" About Publishing Research?

Dr Spock is a brilliant young vascular surgeon who is up for promotion next year. The chair of surgery has warned him that he needs to increase his list of publications to assure passage. He has recently had a paper reviewed by one of the top journals in his specialty, Journal X-special, with several suggestions for revision. He received an e-mail request for manuscript submission from a newly minted, open access, Journal of Vascular Disease Therapy, which promises a quick and likely favorable response for a fee. What should be done? A. Send the paper to another peer-reviewed journal with the suggested revisions. B. Resubmit the paper to Journal X-special. C. Submit to the online journal as is to save time. D. Submit to the online journal and another regular journal. E. Look for another job. These were the questions posed by Jones & McCullough in their excellent recent publication that discussed corruption in publication research [1]. Is open-access publishing the wave of the future in science? Open access (OA) means unrestricted free online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research. Open access is primarily intended for scholarly journal articles, but is also provided for a growing number of theses, book chapters, and scholarly monographs [2–4]. The OA movement had its official start in 2002 with the establishment of the Budapest Open-Access Initiative [2]. Public access to the World Wide Web became widespread in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The low-cost distribution technology has fueled the open-access movement. Conventional non-open-access journals cover publishing costs through access tolls such as subscriptions, site licenses, or pay-per-view [2]. Some non-open-access journals provide open access after an embargo period of 6–12 months or longer [3]. The movement for open access to science seeks to achieve unrestricted and free access to academic publications on the Internet. To this end, two mechanisms have been established: the gold road, in which scientific journals are openly accessible, and the green road, in which publications are self-archived in repositories. The publication of the Finch Report in 2012, advocating exclusively the adoption of the gold road, generated a debate as to whether either of the two options should be prioritized [5]. The recommendations of the Finch Report stirred controversy among academicians specialized in open-access issues, who felt that the role played by repositories was not adequately considered and because the green road places the burden of publishing costs basically on authors. The Finch Report’s conclusions are compatible with the characteristics of science communication in the UK and they could surely also be applied to the (few) countries with a powerful publishing industry and substantial research funding. In Spain, both the current national legislation and the existing rules at universities largely advocate the green road. This is directly related to the structure of scientific communication in Spain, where many journals have little commercial significance, the system of charging a fee to authors has not been adopted, and there is a good repository infrastructure. As for open-access policies, the performance of the scientific communication system in each country should be carefully analyzed to determine the most suitable open-access strategy [5]. The premises behind open-access publishing are that there are viable funding models to maintain traditional peer review standards of quality while also making OA self-sufficient. The challenge is to establish a sustainable financial business model that will permit the use of digital technology but yet not endanger the decades-old traditional publication model and peer review system. Rather than making journal articles accessible through a subscription business model, all academic publications could be made free to read and published with some other cost-recovery models, such as publication charges, subsidies, or charging subscriptions only for the print edition, with the online edition gratis or “free to read” [6–8]. The idealists for the open-access movement are seeking open access to the literature but also to the data that constitute the research within the manuscript [9]. The open-access movement is maturing and must be embraced in some format. Authors seem to be slower in adopting open access than the idealists in the movement [6–9].

An Investigation of the Awareness and Use of Open Access Initiative at the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara State, Nigeria

This study investigated the information environment of lecturers in Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara State, Nigeria, in relation to their information seeking behavior, extent of use of the polytechnic library, perceptions of the resources and services of the library, level of awareness and extent of use of the open access model of scholarly communications, as well as the challenges of accessing and using information resources. It adopted the survey research method, using a questionnaire for data collection, while the descriptive statistics method was used to analyse the data, using tabular presentation and simple percentages. From a population of 280 lecturers for the study, a purposive sample of 164 was drawn. The findings showed that the lecturers’ information needs are focused on online use; they hardly use the polytechnic library due to their perceptions of the resources and services of the library. They are, to a greater extent, aware of open access initiatives, but do not publish in open access outlets, while various challenges affect their access and use of information resources for teaching and research. A recommendation was made, among others, that the polytechnic management should pay more critical attention to the library especially in the areas of adequate, current and comprehensive collections on all the programmes of the institution, as well as the provision of wireless internet services on the campus through a public-private partnership arrangement.

Scholarly Communication, Scholarly Publishing and University Libraries. Plus Ça Change?

The scholarly communication and research evaluation landscape is locked into historical paradigms which inadequately reflect the opportunities of the digital era. Why hasn't the Internet disrupted the practices and the economics of scholarly publishing? This article traces how university library budgets have become dominated by a small number of multinational publishers and attempts at scholarly communication change have only had limited impact, despite the opportunities for increased global distribution of research scholarship. Open access initiatives are assessed in relation to future scholarly communication change in which university libraries play an increasing role in campus scholarly ecosystems.

Administrator Interest is Perceived to Encourage Faculty and Librarian Involvement in Open Access Activities

A Review of:
 Reinsfelder, T.L., & Anderson, J.A. (2013). Observations and perceptions of academic administrator influence on open access initiatives. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 39(6): 481-487. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2013.08.014 
 
 Abstract
 
 Objective – To better understand the roles and influence of senior-level academic administrators, such as provosts, on open access (OA) activities at the institutional level, including whether librarians perform these activities regardless of administrative interest.
 
 Design – Web-based survey questionnaire combined with multiple regression analysis.
 
 Settings – The research was conducted online using surveys emailed to potential participants at not-for-profit public and private academic institutions in the United States with a FTE of greater than 1000.
 
 Subjects – Academic library directors at selected colleges and universities. 
 
 Methods – Using directory information from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and filtering institutions according to not-for-profit status, size, and special focus, a survey sample of 1135 colleges and universities was obtained. Library websites were used to acquire contact information for library directors. In summer 2012 the 43-item survey questionnaire was distributed to respondents online using Qualtrics. The four primary variables were each comprised of multiple questionnaire items and validated using factor analysis, and the data was explored using multiple regression.
 
 Main Results – The survey received 298 respondents for a 26% response rate, though the number of incomplete responses is not stated. Among four stakeholder groups (faculty, publishers, librarians, and senior academic administrators), library directors perceived librarians as having the greatest influence in regards to the adoption of open access (mean = .7056), followed by faculty (.3792), administrators (.1881), and publishers as having a negative impact (–.3684). A positive correlative relationship was determined between Administrator Attention to Open Access—a key variable operationalized by combining eight questionnaire items—and the variables Librarian Commitment to Open Access, Faculty Commitment to Open Access, and Faculty Proclivity Toward Open Access, with the latter especially the case at lower levels of administrator support. Regarding institution size, library directors perceived a higher likelihood of faculty adherence and librarian commitment to OA at large institutions (over 20,000). A given institution’s public or private status and geographic region were not significant predictors of faculty or librarian commitment or adherence to open access.
 
 Conclusions – The study finds that academic library directors perceive librarians to have the strongest influence upon adoption of open access, and senior academic administrator attention to open access is positively linked to the OA activities of faculty and librarians. Larger institutions are considered to have greater commitment to OA, potentially due to differing missions according to institution type. The authors recommend that open access advocates consider administrator roles and target administrator support when seeking to increase participation in OA.

Understanding Open Access for Africa

This paper considers the origin, definition, rationale and modus operandi of open access. It discusses issues that are fundamental to open access using the Budapest Open Access Initiative as a reference point. It also discusses the relevance of open access in Africa focusing on the green road to open access and concludes with recommendations for the successful implementation of open access via the green road.

Elsevier’s commitment to Universal Access

At Elsevier we recognise that access to quality research is vital to the scientific community and beyond. For us this means providing support and the latest tools to maintain the quality and integrity of published scientific literature, achieving the widest dissemination of content, and embracing the opportunities of open access.Elsevier is committed to universal access, quality, and sustainability. We encourage active engagement and discussions about access. We are investing our resources in developing new initiatives, expanding our open access and other access initiatives, and in developing our policies.Global Access initiatives are enabled with organisations throughout the world. Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors who publish in Elsevier journals to comply with manuscript archiving requirements of several funding bodies, as specified as conditions of researcher grant awards. Our intention is to further explore collaborations with funding bodies to ensure maximum compliance for their authors, hence also the possibility offered by 1214 of STM subscription-based journals for authors, funding bodies, or other parties to sponsor open access to articles. With 74 journals offering Open Archive and 23 Open Access journal titles available on ScienceDirect and a number already in the pipeline, Elsevier offers several ways for authors to make their work available beyond the subscription model in several scientific areas spanning from Immunology, to Pharma, Physics, Genomics and including well-known brands such as Cell Reports.Elsevier Open Access Solutions are thought in line with our commitment to delivering the highest level of sustainable access to quality content. An example of which is our support towards major academic achievements as exemplified by our commitment to annually making the work of Nobel Prize winners freely available on ScienceDirect. Similarly, Elsevier is making all articles in the high-energy physics area reporting results from CERN’s LHC Project freely available on ScienceDirect.We believe subscription and open-access publishing can co-exist and we will continue to invest to close remaining access gaps globally – thus, also via philanthropic programmes that address the needs of less developed countries - and support a balanced mix of universal access mechanisms as the key drivers for a high-quality and sustainable scholarly communication system.

Elsevier’s commitment to Universal Access

At Elsevier we recognise that access to quality research is vital to the scientific community and beyond. For us this means providing support and the latest tools to maintain the quality and integrity of published scientific literature, achieving the widest dissemination of content, and embracing the opportunities of open access.Elsevier is committed to universal access, quality, and sustainability. We encourage active engagement and discussions about access. We are investing our resources in developing new initiatives, expanding our open access and other access initiatives, and in developing our policies.Global Access initiatives are enabled with organisations throughout the world. Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors who publish in Elsevier journals to comply with manuscript archiving requirements of several funding bodies, as specified as conditions of researcher grant awards. Our intention is to further explore collaborations with funding bodies to ensure maximum compliance for their authors, hence also the possibility offered by 1214 of STM subscription-based journals for authors, funding bodies, or other parties to sponsor open access to articles. With 74 journals offering Open Archive and 23 Open Access journal titles available on ScienceDirect and a number already in the pipeline, Elsevier offers several ways for authors to make their work available beyond the subscription model in several scientific areas spanning from Immunology, to Pharma, Physics, Genomics and including well-known brands such as Cell Reports.Elsevier Open Access Solutions are thought in line with our commitment to delivering the highest level of sustainable access to quality content. An example of which is our support towards major academic achievements as exemplified by our commitment to annually making the work of Nobel Prize winners freely available on ScienceDirect. Similarly, Elsevier is making all articles in the high-energy physics area reporting results from CERN’s LHC Project freely available on ScienceDirect.We believe subscription and open-access publishing can co-exist and we will continue to invest to close remaining access gaps globally – thus, also via philanthropic programmes that address the needs of less developed countries - and support a balanced mix of universal access mechanisms as the key drivers for a high-quality and sustainable scholarly communication system.

Open Access Goals Revisited: How Green and Gold Open Access Are Meeting (or Not) Their Original Goals

The authors ask how far the open access movement has come in meeting its initial goal of making scholarly research freely available to all potential users immediately upon publication through open digital repositories (green OA) or open access journals (gold OA). In 2002, the Budapest Open Access Initiative named the movement and examined the new opportunities that technology made possible. In 2012, the same group declared partial success: ‘We're solidly in the middle.’ The main challenge has been economic sustainability. The authors argue that gold OA has fared better and has more potential for economic stability than green OA. As commercial publishers have found ways to live with and even profit from open access, the movement has not yet achieved its goal of reducing costs for libraries. The future remains uncertain for OA as the means to meeting its goals need more critical evaluation and revision.

Attitudes towards open access: A meta-synthesis of the empirical literature

The aim of the present study is to report the results of a meta-synthesis of the empirical literature on scholars' attitudes towards Open Access (OA) journals. A total of 15 articles published in scholarly journals since 2002 (when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was released) were included in the study and five major themes emerged from their examination and analysis. The literature indicates that attitudes and perceptions of OA are varied across countries and across disciplines. Free access, which is perceived to facilitate wider dissemination of research outputs, is a strong incentive for publishing in OA. However, quality and reputation are the most important factors in selecting a journal and take priority over the availability of free access. Although OA is perceived to have many advantages over the traditional publication model, it raises some concerns too, especially in regard to the author-pays model, the quality of peer-review and the impact of the journals.

Open access to scientific information: comparative study in DOAJ

Purpose– The purpose of the paper is to provide a comparative retrospective analysis of Bulgarian, Turkish and Croatian Open Access (OA) journals added in Directory of Open Access journals (DOAJ) in the period 2002-2013.Design/methodology/approach– First of all, the study is focussed on brief review of definitions and descriptions of the OA as a global movement. In the study were analyzed the three main OA initiatives and was shown the difference between Golden Road and Green Road. Second of all, the authors used the comparative approach and made a comparative study of the OA journals in Bulgaria, Turkey and Croatia and present the evaluation results and findings.Findings– Qualitative and quantitative data for the study are collected by the DOAJ. The data are analyzed in terms of quantity and period, and the results are presented graphically and tabular and finally there are made major specific conclusions and recommendations.Originality/value– The paper shows that OA in the digital space has an important position in scientific research. There are many discussion issues related to the problems of OA, but overall study of OA to scientific information, and in particular comparative study of Bulgarian, Turkish and Croatian journals in the DOAJ does not exist at the moment.

Digitization initiatives and special libraries in India

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to evaluate the objectives, priorities and criteria of digitization. It also analyses the open access initiatives adopted by the special libraries in National Capital Region of India. The paper further examines the motivating factors of using digital resources. Design/methodology/approach – The research paper is based on primary survey of librarians and users of special libraries. Weighted index has been used to analyse the factors of digitization while factor analysis is used to study the open access initiatives adopted by the libraries. Findings – Based on the primary goal of libraries, i.e. to increase their global visibility and the ultimate purpose of such digital projects is to provide greater access to their collections to promote research activities. The paper summarizes that increased accessibility is the most preferred objective; content value is most preferred criterion for digitization. The paper further identifies factors that motivated users to use digital resources. Practical implications – The availability of digital literature not only helps the local users but provides access to their resources and thus increases the visibility of these libraries globally. The revelation of special libraries to undertake such ventures is not only helpful to establish better information availability and visibility but also to maximize its value and worthiness. Originality/value – Most existing studies remain on the level of collecting data and interpreting specific cases on digital conversion but this paper not only interprets the reasons of digitization but also investigates reasons of user needs by factorizing them. This paper examines the objectives, criteria and prioritization of material for digitization. It further identifies the factors motivating users to access these digital resources.

Current situation of e-books in academic and public libraries in Sweden

Introducing e-books into Swedish libraries has been influenced by the idea of equal access to all media for all Swedish citizens as well as by librarians’ wish to provide the best possible service to their users. Libraries perceived this new resource and service as a way of fulfilling their specific function in a democratic society, which is usually described as mediation (or transfer) of knowledge and culture to all. This is a common basis for the incorporation of new media and information resources (including e-books) into Swedish academic and public libraries. Apart from this common platform, we see other similarities in working with e-books in both types of libraries, but also a number of differences. Most of them relate to the position of libraries within their respective context and in relation to their specific role. Academic libraries are quite influential players in the global scholarly communication and supporters of both research and study processes. As such they are embedded in a mainly international market of scientific information and scholarly materials. They have significant resources provided by their parent universities for the acquisition of scholarly material and a wide choice of commercially available material from different providers. They are also incorporated into a national library consortium with great negotiation power. Thus, they have more freedom to experiment with a variety of business and pricing models offered on the international market. They also have a high competence in publishing and are often publishers themselves. Their involvement in research processes and in open access initiatives puts them in a position to provide expertise to researchers in the areas of publishing and intellectual property protection. Public libraries are part of the local cultural and educational landscape. As such, they depend on the production of media and content in national languages which helps cater to the needs and demands of the local population. They are also customers on the limited market of publishing, entertainment and education-related materials which help fulfil their function as educators. As public libraries offer open and free access to their resources to the entire population of a certain area, eventually covering the whole country, they are regarded as a disruptive element in the market economy. This perceived threat from public libraries was reborn with the emergence of e-books. Despite their differences, both academic and public libraries face similar challenges and problems relating to the management of their collections, creating metadata, and providing access to their content. So far, there haven’t been any mutually satisfactory solutions.

The open access landscape in Zimbabwe: the case of university libraries in ZULC

Purpose – The paper aims to focus on the current state of open access (OA) initiatives in Zimbabwean universities. The paper specifically reports the initiatives at Zimbabwean universities regarding institutional repositories that promote OA and other digital OA collections. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research methodology was adopted. Questionnaires were used as the primary data collection method for this research. The research sought to address the following specific areas: the state of institutional repositories and open access in Zimbabwe, the discoverability of content, open access policies and mandates, the benefits of open access in Zimbabwe, and future plans for institutional OA. A total of eight out of 12 universities responded to the questionnaire. The data provided by the universities involved in the research were summarised to give a general picture of the open access landscape in Zimbabwe. Findings – The current initiatives in the universities involved in this survey indicate that most universities in Zimbabwe are going to have institutional repositories that promote open access to information. Most institutions in Zimbabwe are already working on putting open access policies in place in a bid to promote open access. Originality/value – The research will shed more light on the status quo of open access initiatives in Zimbabwe, particularly with regards to institutional repositories, open access policies and open access mandates.