Why self-archive?

Elizabeth Harbord

Head of Collection Management

Context

White Rose

SHERPA

Experience so far – librarians and academics

LEADIRS http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/leadirs/index.htm

Publication and self-archiving

Author writes paper

Submits to journal

Paper refereed

Revised by author

Author submits final version

Published in journal

Deposits in e-print repository

Who has an interest in self-archiving? Authors/researchers

– Editors

Publishers

University management

Libraries

What are their objectives?

Authors – disseminate their research and further their career

Publishers – make money (if commercial), cover costs (not-for-profit). Learned societies in-between?

University management – maximise intellectual capital for competitive advantage (high RAE ratings generate income). Reduce library costs

Libraries – provide as wide a range of material as possible for users within their budget

Self-archiving – universities

Pros:– Organises, manages and shares research output (especially

for RAE) and protects its intellectual property– Raises profile of university and “badges” research with

university identity– May ultimately reduce costs of journal subscriptions

Cons:– Cost of running repository and ensuring all research

publications are deposited– Impact on research ratings if research not published in

prestigious journals while current model is in place

Self-archiving – libraries

Pros:– Opportunity to be more involved in scholarly communication

process by running institutional repositories– Advocacy process will strengthen links with academic

departments– Librarians have appropriate skills (metadata)– May be solution to journals financial crisis?

Cons:– Additional cost of advocacy and running the repository (e.g.

copyright clearance, metadata creation) unless project or centrally funded

Self-archiving – authors

Pros:– Dissemination of research more quickly– Impact of research – more citations– Access to research easier and repositories cross-searchable

Cons:– Extra work– Need publication in “reputable” journals for RAE, promotion– Unpopular if seen as driven by “managerial” considerations

Academics’ concerns about self-archiving

What’s in it for me? Extra work Copyright Quality control Plagiarism Preservation

How can we encourage self-archiving? Advocacy

– With academics and university managers– Departmental meetings, university committees– Champions– Cultural issues

Make the self-archiving process as easy as possible, and/or provide staff to deposit e-prints and add metadata

Address copyright concerns – ROMEO/Sherpa list http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

How can we encourage self-archiving? Quality control – peer reviewed material only or keep

pre-prints separate

Plagiarism – allay worries; software

Preservation – university repositories more stable than individual or subject repositories

Conclusions

Cultural and organisational issues are more important than technical ones

Self-archiving is being promoted alongside the current scholarly publishing model – but financial savings for libraries (and universities) will only happen if that model changes