2017 Charleston Library Conference

The Open Access movement - first established in the biomedical sciences – has primarily been focused on securing the wide dissemination of primary research literature. This is despite the potential for review journals to contribute to the progress of science and benefit of society. Review articles summarize research findings, draw together and integrate strands of knowledge, assess practical applications, and point to unanswered questions. Expanding their availability has the potential to accelerate research and the speed at which new research findings are assessed, disseminated and implemented. Yet the OA movement has largely overlooked review journals, and established OA business models (in particular the APC model) are incongruent with expert authored, editorially intensive review publications.

This presentation will describe first a project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s initiative, Increasing Openness and Transparency in Research, to convert one of the world's leading public health journals, the Annual Review of Public Health (ARPH), to OA. The objective of this program is to advance public health research and discourse as well as create a mechanism to make valuable review content OA to maximize research impact and investments. Building on the collective spirit in which libraries, funders, and publishers work together to ensure sustainable funding for journals that switch from subscription to OA, this presentation will describe this publisher-driven initiative to secure a sustainable transition path for review journals. The presentation will chart the progress of the program- describing the effect of OA on usage and readership metrics of the journal, as well as describing progress towards building a sustainable collective funding base of subscribing libraries, funding agencies and stakeholders in public health.

The second section of the presentation will explore the kinds of relationships libraries and publishers can forge to work as partners and create a sustainable market that meets the needs of scholars and libraries. What kinds of new thinking around financial models, risk and true engagement will help move the needle further towards openness?