10 th European Conference of Medical Health Libraries

10 th European Conference of Medical & Health Libraries Europe as an Open Book Digital Medical Libraries: A step ahead for Open Access Artemis Chaleplioglou Foundation for Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens artemischal@bioacademy. gr Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Contents n n n n n Introduction Terms Libraries without walls: from traditional to digital libraries Scientific Publishing in the Digital Era Open Access movement and the Biomedical literature The impact of OA on European Research Digital Medical Libraries & Institutional Repositories Librarians’ meeting new challenges: Institutional Repositories: The Greek paradigm Conclusions- Suggestions Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Introduction n Worldwide information market in a transition phase Development of Information and Communication Technologies ¨ Widespread adoption of Internet ¨ n New issues are to be discussed n The Publishing Industry is about to change too n A hybrid environment (? ) n Medical Libraries (ML) Digital Medical Libraries (DML) Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Definitions (1/2) n Digital Libraries (DL): ¨ n E- content is: ¨ n “a body where electronic material on line is held and provided to the public through the means of modern technologies”…“DL is an environment to bring together collections, services, and people in support of the full life circle of creation, dissemination, use and preservation of data, information and knowledge” [DLI, 1997] “the information, media or other intellectual property at hand. E- content examples, include: a) premium content, b) information services and aggregators and c) free web- pages and downloads” [Utvich, 2005] Open access (OA) content: ¨ “free available on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself” [Bailey, 2005] Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Definitions (2/2) n Institutional Repository (IR): ¨ n Scientific Information: ¨ v v “a set of services that a University offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital material created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access of distribution” [Lynch, 2003] “a variety of materials produced by an institute and its community members from many units, such as e-prints, technical repartees, theses and dissertations, datasets and teaching materials” [Bailey, 2005] Scientific information fostering economic growth Research and innovation are key- issues Production and widespread dissemination of scientific information settle a country’s scientific status Internet main distribution channel Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Libraries without walls: From Traditional to Digital libraries n DLs emerged as a technological achievement in the late 90 s n Digital scientific information: ¨ ¨ n n n v the digital version of articles published in a journal, whether the “first copy” is printed or electronic articles available on the www DMLs collect & manage biomedical information Medical information has a strong social & financial impact DLs accommodate the easy and quick information dissemination DMLs should find ways to bring their special collections in conjunction with the need for public access to medical information n New issues to discuss Ø Within this framework IIBEAA decided to create a DL for the needs of its researchers. DL was considered as the best solution for the following reasons: ¨ ¨ ¨ Researchers can have immediate access to current scientific information from worldwide sources Currency, availability and much needed specialization of information could only be achieved through electronically transmitted sources Information communication routes could be established with corresponding medical research institutes Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Scientific Publishing in the Digital Era n Traditional publishing model included “two-sided” nature and presence on each side of the same agents ¨ n Publishers fulfill a double mission: ¨ ¨ n n n Publishers- intermediaries between authors/ producers and libraries, which represent consumers/library- users. Dissemination of good research, by distributing and producing journals Certification provided by upstream and downstream segments Easier information dissemination and access to scientific knowledge Information certification (? ) Transformation of traditional Publishing Models The financial impact of the scientific information electronically provided Access of scientific information through Internet and Networks Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Libraries in the digital era n Roles closely related to those of the publishing industry n Cooperation in the form of consortia Heal-Link (Hellenic Academic Libraries Link) exists in Greece, providing full text access to electronic scientific journals, e-books and databases, covering a wide subject range of biomedical and social sciences, as well as humanities. Greece is also an official member of SELL (Southern European Libraries Link) v n Consortia could be used for Repositories development Ø DLs developing IRs is an issue discussed in this presentation, as the libraries’ answer to the OA movement. Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Open Access & Biomedical Literature n OA to scientific publication & medical research was mainly forced by global social and financial factors: ¨ ¨ ¨ n n Developments of scientific community Market concentration within publishing industry Advanced public interest for qualitative health information Primitive samples of OA in early 60 s Only after 90 s scientific content was freely available n Followed efforts : Bioline International, Biomed Central, DOAJ, Free Medical Journals, Plo. S Medicine, Sci. ELO, Pub. Med Central etc. v The efforts presented above, along with the rest held worldwide, converged in the concern that in order to maximize research results, they should be widely disseminated and available in open access. Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

The impact of OA on European Research n National and regional open access projects n Developments examined taking under consideration specific structures and organizational profiles of the scholarly publishing markets in Europe n The fact that most of the publishers are commercial companies is strongly related to the developments observed in Europe. ¨ n E-print archives exist rather than national platforms with free access to journals. It is important for Europe to make sure that there is a “level-playing field” in terms of business models for scientific journals, in order to allow for an optimal degree of dissemination and influence of European research. Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Digital Medical Libraries & Institutional Repositories n Access to scientific research Individual web pages OA repositories/ archives OA journals v DMLs developing Institutional Repositories managing the intellectual capital produced by the community members of the institution creating a framework appropriate for the collection, dissemination and preservation of scientific information, v developing a concrete content management policy facing parameters v reassuring the adoption of all necessary measures to ensure long-term preservation of archived digital material v v n IRs development within DMLs functional content could provide multiple advantages § § the new ways of information linkage, retrieve and preservation, the increased use of library’s e-content, the production of added value services and personalized information products, the dissemination of evaluated and high quality scientific information etc Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Digital Medical Libraries & Institutional Repositories n n n DMLs setting up publishing mechanisms for scientific information Make authors believe the need for providing open access scientific information Researchers need to be persuaded that the OA is a trustworthy publishing model Libraries have to examine the bio-medical information market in order to study the authors’ response Quality & Authenticity ¨ ¨ n n the next step End users prefer reading evaluated papers Researchers prefer publishing their work in reputable journals Institution’s organizational and scientific profile is a guarantee for the IRs e-content Peer- reviewing process DMLs need to adopt promotion techniques- Communication strategies, along with market researches and promotion campaigns Organize seminars Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Librarians’ meeting new challenges n n Librarians’ of the 21 st century are creating added value knowledge themselves, ensuring their libraries’ viability and competency. Medical librarians meet the same challenges within their specialized field: set policies cooperate with computer science engineers and other fields develop subject- based portals decide what metadata to store and present understand copyright issues select, organize and filter the repositories e-content quality create metadata, controlled vocabularies and thesauri develop quality control management create preservation methods and techniques promote the project using public relations and promotion techniques, prepare the scientific community to accept the coming changes in the publishing industry and ¨ train users in IR deposit and searching procedures ¨ ¨ ¨ Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Institutional Repositories: The Greek paradigm Ø The National Documentation Centre of Greece n Environment where it can host an IR containing the scientific information produced by the National Research Institute n Collector’ s role of scientific information produced in Greek language, by producing bilingual (English- Greek) metadata, available to the scientific community worldwide n It will act as an e-content management centre & an outlet for overcoming language barriers giving researchers a link to their international counterparts Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Institutional Repositories: The Greek paradigm Ø n n n n Foundation for Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens Project in progress- The policy that will be finally adopted is under discussion and the project’s final results are not to be published yet Two Phases: ¨ Phase A (May - June 2006) Library’s Initiative/ surveys/ possible scenarios ¨ Phase B (…- May 2007) Marketing techniques/ data re-evaluation Survey Method: Questionnaires/ Interviews User categories taking part: a) Researchers b) Technical Scientists Total No. : 100 Dealing Issues: metadata extraction, preservation requirements, information access, retrieval etc. It is noticeable that it was the Foundation’s DL that took the initiative in proposing the aforementioned project Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Would you publish original work in an Open Access Journal ? Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

BIOMED CENTRAL Institution Name: Foundation for Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens Period of report: 01 June 2006 -> 30 June 2006 Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Are you familiar with the idea of IRs as publishing models with freely accessible content ? Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Would you publish original work in an Institutional Repository ? Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Would you support the Library’s effort to develop an IR within the Foundation? Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

In General… n The Participants’ comments section: Publishing Industry still dominant exercises strong scientific and social effects countries like Greece are not to set novel publishing models yet; instead follow the worldwide model ¨ IIBEAA’s importance was underlined including the innovative research projects and the scientific achievements that they are taking place in the Foundation ¨ ¨ ¨ Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

The Library’s response n n The results were not the expected ones In order to change the dominant situation the Library will: Organize educational seminars & lectures Print and distribute brochures to the Laboratories Print posters presenting the DL’s affiliation with the OA movement Use the web site to inform visitors about the OA movement and IRs development Promote the creation of a National Institutional Coalition for the OA e-content (research foundations, academic institutions, government organizations) ¨ Search for International partners coming from biomedical institutions ¨ ¨ ¨ n n Campaign already in progress After May 2007 the Library will move on to the second phase of the Survey Library & Informatics Dpt discuss about possible scenarios & IR Policies Personnel needs and technical equipment (software/hardware) are being estimated Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Conclusions- Suggestions n In order to manage e-content in medical libraries using repository techniques, cooperation at national and international level is needed. n Strongly related policies among Europeans, regarding medical econtent and a common approach to its financial treatment is also of essence. n There actions to be taken under the European Community’s initiative n The greatest Information Organizations and Federations support scientific e-content’s open dissemination Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

What libraries should do? Ø Promoting business models for legal- deposit of scientific e-content under their functional structure and set reliable policies, which will guarantee the contents quality Cluj 11 -16 September 2006

Thank you for your attention… Cluj 11 -16 September 2006