Researcher awareness and access to open access content through libraries: A study for the JISC Scholarly Communications Group

Abstract

A study was carried out into: the extent of library support and promotion of Open Access provision, initiatives and activities in UK universities; researchers' awareness of Open Access issues; how effectively researchers are learning about Open Access via their library. Whilst most libraries have information, sometimes extensive, about Open Access on their websites this is not always easy to find, let alone obvious. Libraries carry out a range of educational activities about scholarly communication issues, including Open Access, but they are not very effective in getting messages to researchers or changing their behaviour. Researchers are in the main still poorly informed on the issues and, where they have learned about Open Access, have done so by word of mouth, by familiarity with the physics arXiv, from their grant-awarding body (usually the Wellcome Trust) or from their use of Open Access publishers such as PLoS and BMC. Nonetheless, researchers say that the library is the natural place to turn for information on communication issues, though most seem not to be actively examining the opportunities available to them in this regard.

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