JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study: An Evaluation and horizon scan of the current library management systems and related systems landscape for UK higher education, March 2008. A new report from JISC and SCONUL. Excerpt:
...Key insights into the needs of the academic community were provided in early 2006 by Schmoller and Ferguson in their 98-page report ‘Review of the information environment for social science researchers’, commissioned by ESRC in 2005. The report was never published by ESRC but seems to have affected the thinking of at least one agency, as judged by public statements of their response....Below are some of the key extracts from the Review that are particularly relevant to this Study....
We note that the mandatory deposit in open access repositories of all ESRC research results and resulting publications (and all PhD theses) is supported by the community and we recommend this should be pursued with vigour....
Summary of key points...
The moves by publishers towards more open access to electronic versions of journals will continue, extending slowly to books, but progress will be patchy and inhibited by cost barriers....
In terms of e-content the rise of Open Access (OA) means that HE libraries are playing a growing role in managing (via some kind of institutional repository) the scholarly output of their institution. Institutional repositories however are not part of the scope of this study....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/30/2008 02:03:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
