LIBER 2020 - Panel Session #1 - From Frenemies to Trusted Partners

These are the remaining questions from the LIBER 2020 Panel Session: From Frenemies to Trusted Partners: How transformation collaboration between libraries and publishers is essential to launch new OA business models, answered by the panellists.

Session Description:

The now widespread recognition of the benefits of open access (OA) to research and scholarship has brought the global system of scholarly publishing to a historic turning point, as well as an impasse as the key stakeholders differ on how best to achieve the goal of universal OA. The  debate in scholarly communications since the announcement of Plan S, OA 2020, numerous negotiated “transformative agreements,” and the (rumored) forthcoming White House Executive Order  has left both publishers and libraries scrambling to find sustainable and affordable paths forward.

Given the shared challenges, risks, and unknowns of the paradigm shift towards open access, purely transactional relationships between libraries and publishers are no longer sufficient. Library budgets are as constrained as ever and publishers continue to produce more content for researchers eager to publish more articles than ever (and increasingly more non-article outputs like datasets, code, and protocols). Yet, the dominance of profit-maximizing commercial business practices over the past few decades has damaged trust between the two major transactional partners in scholarly communications. This lack of trust is compounded by operational challenges for both libraries and publishers: incomplete or dirty data, difficulty with author and institutional disambiguation, lack of awareness of each other’s workflows, institutional policies, and intractable enterprise systems that are tough to modify).

In these turbulent times, more than ever, libraries and publishers need to work together. And not just talk about working together. Meeting the shared objective of effective communication of research requires trust, collaboration, and a true sense of partnership, that can best be achieved through meaningful engagement between both stakeholders on key issues.

The focus of this panel will be an overview of libraries and publishers that are “walking the walk” when it comes to transformative collaboration. It is time for some of us to move OA forward, even while others are still moving towards OA. By focusing on radical transparency and total customer engagement, libraries and publishers are successfully partnering to launch truly innovative new business models for the new-OA future. This panel will offer perspectives from successful collaborations that are ongoing to facilitate broader discussion amongst panelists and attendees on how best to build the trust required for these partnerships.