Collaborative transition to open access publishing by scholarly societies.

For decades, universities, researchers, and libraries have sought a systemwide transition of scholarly publishing to open access (OA), but progress has been slow. There is now a potential for more rapid and impactful change, as new collaborative OA publishing models have taken shape. Cooperative publishing arrangements represent a viable path forward for society publishers to transition to OA as the default standard for disseminating research. The traditional article processing charge OA model has introduced sometimes unnavigable financial roadblocks, but cooperative arrangements premised on collective action principles can help to secure long-term stability and prevent the risk of free riding. Investment in cooperative arrangements does not require that cash-strapped libraries discover a new influx of money as their collection budgets continue to shrink, but rather that they purposefully redirect traditional subscription funds toward publishing support. These cooperative arrangements will require a two-way demonstration of trust: On one hand, libraries working together to provide assurances of sustained financial support, and on the other, societies' willingness to experiment with discarding subscriptions. Organizations such as Society Publishers Coalition and Transitioning Society Publications to Open Access are committed to education about and further development of scalable and cooperative OA publishing models.

Borrowing trouble? The impact of a systematic review service on interlibrary loan borrowing in an academic health sciences library.

BACKGROUND: With the mandate to review all available literature in the study's inclusion parameters, systematic review projects are likely to require full-text access to a significant number of articles that are not available in a library's collection, thereby necessitating ordering content via interlibrary loan (ILL). The aim of this study is to understand what effect a systematic review service has on the copyright royalty fees accompanying ILL requests at an academic health sciences library. CASE PRESENTATION: The library created a custom report using ILLiad data to look specifically at 2018 ILL borrowing requests that were known to be part of systematic reviews. This subset of borrowing activity was then analyzed to determine its impact on the library's copyright royalty expenditures for the year. In 2018, copyright eligible borrowing requests that were known to be part of systematic reviews represented only approximately 5% of total filled requests that involved copyright eligible borrowing. However, these systematic review requests directly or indirectly caused approximately 10% of all the Spencer S. Eccles Library copyright royalty expenditures for 2018 requests. CONCLUSION: Based on the sample data set, the library's copyright royalty expenditures did increase, but the overall financial impact was modest.

Assessing return on investment in health libraries requires lateral thinking.

This study considers the status of trends in value and impact research in health libraries and discusses how return on investment approaches such as social value analysis could be used. It uses an example, based on the Health Education England evaluation framework for health library and knowledge services, to outline how a theory of change can be developed. Health libraries now work more closely with health care staff and researchers in co-creating value and impact for improving patient care. Therefore, collection of data to assess social value should be drawn not only from performance data already collected by libraries, but also data collection by and for the health care organisation on evaluation of care quality and professional competence.

Building the Systematic Review Core in an academic health sciences library.

BACKGROUND: The authors present efforts to build capacity at our institution for conducting systematic reviews and other forms of evidence synthesis through partnerships and a recharge model. This report describes how we successfully created and launched a for-fee systematic review core at our library. CASE PRESENTATION: Throughout 2014 and 2015, library leadership proposed different models for getting institutional and financial support for librarians and staff to better support university researchers conducting systematic reviews. Though well received, initial requests for financial support were not funded. The executive director of the Health Sciences Library released two years' worth of salary and benefits to fund an evidence synthesis and retrieval librarian position. With this new position, the team formed a charge-back core facility in partnership with our university's Clinical Translation and Science Award hub. A series of procedural decisions and operational changes helped the group achieve success. Within eighteen months after launching the Systematic Review Core, we reached maximum capacity with more than twenty ongoing reviews. DISCUSSION: Assigning a dollar value to our expertise put us on par with other subject matter experts on campus and actually drove demand. We could act as paid consultants in research projects and shifted the perception of librarians from service providers to research partners. Affiliating with our partners was key to our success and boosted our ability to strengthen our campus' research infrastructure.

Implementation of a fee-based service model to university-affiliated researchers at the University of Alberta.

BACKGROUND: There is growing demand for specialized services in academic libraries, including supporting systematic reviews and measuring research impact. STUDY PURPOSE: The John W. Scott Health Sciences Library implemented a fee-based pilot project for the Faculty of Nursing for one year to test a fee-based model for specialized services, to evaluate its sustainability and scalability for the longer term, and to assess the feasibility of extending this service model to other health sciences faculties. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the development and delivery of the fee-based service model. Through a team-based approach, we successfully provided specialized services including mediated literature searching, research support, and research impact analyses to the Faculty of Nursing. DISCUSSION: Despite some challenges in developing and implementing the fee-based service model, our pilot project demonstrated demand for fee-based specialized services in the health sciences and suggests potential for this unique service model to continue and expand.

Forward view: advancing health library and knowledge services in England.

This article is the fourth in a series on New Directions. The National Health Service is under pressure, challenged to meet the needs of an ageing population, whilst striving to improve standards and ensure decision making is underpinned by evidence. Health Education England is steering a new course for NHS library and knowledge services in England to ensure access to knowledge and evidence for all decision makers. Knowledge for Healthcare calls for service transformation, role redesign, greater coordination and collaboration. To meet user expectations, health libraries must achieve sustainable, affordable access to digital content. Traditional tasks will progressively become mechanised. Alongside supporting learners, NHS librarians and knowledge specialists will take a greater role as knowledge brokers, delivering business critical services. They will support the NHS workforce to signpost patients and the public to high-quality information. There is a need for greater efficiency and effectiveness through greater co-operation and service mergers. Evaluation of service quality will focus more on outcomes, less on counting. These changes require an agile workforce, fit for the future. There is a bright future in which librarians' expertise is used to mobilise evidence, manage and share knowledge, support patients, carers and families, optimise technology and social media and provide a keystone for improved patient care and safety.

A journal cancellation survey and resulting impact on interlibrary loan.

OBJECTIVE: The research describes an extensible method of evaluating and cancelling electronic journals during a budget shortfall and evaluates implications for interlibrary loan (ILL) and user satisfaction. METHODS: We calculated cost per use for cancellable electronic journal subscriptions (n=533) from the 2013 calendar year and the first half of 2014, cancelling titles with cost per use greater than $20 and less than 100 yearly uses. For remaining titles, we issued an online survey asking respondents to rank the importance of journals to their work. Finally, we gathered ILL requests and COUNTER JR2 turnaway reports for calendar year 2015. RESULTS: Three hundred fifty-four respondents completed the survey. Because of the level of heterogeneity of titles in the survey as well as respondents' backgrounds, most titles were reported to be never used. We developed criteria based on average response across journals to determine which to cancel. Based on this methodology, we cancelled eight journals. Examination of ILL data revealed that none of the cancelled titles were requested with any frequency. Free-text responses indicated, however, that many value free ILL as a suitable substitute for immediate full-text access to biomedical journal literature. CONCLUSIONS: Soliciting user feedback through an electronic survey can assist collections librarians to make electronic journal cancellation decisions during slim budgetary years. This methodology can be adapted and improved upon at other health sciences libraries.

Demonstrating the financial impact of clinical libraries: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this review is to evaluate the tools used to measure the financial value of libraries in a clinical setting. METHODS: Searches were carried out on ten databases for the years 2003-2013, with a final search before completion to identify any recent papers. RESULTS: Eleven papers met the final inclusion criteria. There was no evidence of a single 'best practice', and many metrics used to measure financial impact of clinical libraries were developed on an ad hoc basis locally. The most common measures of financial impact were value of time saved, value of resource collection against cost of alternative sources, cost avoidance and revenue generated through assistance on grant submissions. Few papers provided an insight into the longer term impact on the library service resulting from submitting return on investment (ROI) or other financial impact statements. CONCLUSIONS: There are limited examples of metrics which clinical libraries can use to measure explicit financial impact. The methods highlighted in this literature review are generally implicit in the measures used and lack robustness. There is a need for future research to develop standardised, validated tools that clinical libraries can use to demonstrate their financial impact.

International Trends in Health Science Librarianship Part 19: The Balkan States (Bulgaria and Croatia).

This is the 19th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in the 21st century. The focus of the present issue is the Balkan Region (Bulgaria and Croatia). The next regular feature column will investigate two other Balkan states - Serbia and Slovenia. JM.

Breaking inertia: increasing access to journals during a period of declining budgets: a case study.

Beginning in January 2012, a 1-year pilot pay-per-view (PPV) service was implemented. Twenty-four journal subscriptions were canceled to fund the service, and through the PPV service, the library was able to offer patrons access to over 700 previously unavailable biomedical journals. At the end of the pilot period, the total PPV cost for each journal accessed was compared to the subscription cost to determine if PPV was an effective use of library money. While remaining essentially budget neutral, the number of full-text articles accessed increased over 400%. PPV can be a cost-effective method for expanding access to journals.

Evaluating big deal journal bundles.

Large commercial publishers sell bundled online subscriptions to their entire list of academic journals at prices significantly lower than the sum of their á la carte prices. Bundle prices differ drastically between institutions, but they are not publicly posted. The data that we have collected enable us to compare the bundle prices charged by commercial publishers with those of nonprofit societies and to examine the types of price discrimination practiced by commercial and nonprofit journal publishers. This information is of interest to economists who study monopolist pricing, librarians interested in making efficient use of library budgets, and scholars who are interested in the availability of the work that they publish.

International trends in health science librarianship Part 10: The Greater China area.

This is the 10th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship. This issue describes developments in health science librarianship in the first decade of the 21st century in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The next issue will report on Japan and South Korea. JM.

[The future of scientific libraries]. / Il futuro delle biblioteche scientifiche.

"Making predictions is always very difficult, especially about the future". Niels Bohr's quote is very appropriate when looking into the future of libraries. If the Web is now the richest library in the world, it is also the most friendly and therefore the most convenient. The evolution of libraries in the coming years - both traditional and online - will probably depend on their ability to meet the information needs of users: improved ease of use and better reliability of the information. These are objectives that require money and - given the general reduction in budgets - it is not obvious that the results will be achieved. However, there are many promising experiences at the international level that show that the world of libraries is populated by projects and creativity. Traditional or digital, libraries will increasingly present themselves more as a sharing tool than as a repository of information: it is the sharing that translates data into knowledge. In the healthcare field, the integration of online libraries with the epidemiological information systems could favor the fulfillment of unconscious information needs of health personnel; libraries will therefore be a key tool for an integrated answer to the challenge of continuing education in medicine. The Internet is no longer a library but an information ecosystem where the data are transformed into knowledge by sharing and discussion.

International trends in health science librarianship. Part 5 Latin America and the Caribbean.

This is the 5th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in Latin America and the Caribbean in the first decade of the 21st century. The invited authors are from Argentina, Bermuda and Mexico. Future issues will track trends in Central Europe and the Middle East. JM.

Cálculo del valor económico de una muestra de publicaciones seriadas de la Biblioteca Médica Nacional cubana / Calculation of the economic value of a sample of serial publications in the National Medical Library of Cuba

Se realizó una investigación de tipo descriptivo longitudinal prospectivo con el objetivo de elaborar una propuesta metodológica para obtener el valor económico de la colección de publicaciones seriadas impresas como activo fijo tangible de la Biblioteca Médica Nacional cubana, por la prioridad de estos documentos para la difusión del conocimiento científico. Se fundamentó el procedimiento para obtener y calcular los precios de las publicaciones seriadas impresas adquiridas en la institución. Se destacó la importancia de valorar las colecciones para enfrentar auditorías internas y externas en la institución, contratar servicio de seguros, fundamentar programas o proyectos de financiación y para la toma de decisiones en el intercambio y descarte de las colecciones como un bien institucional tangible. La técnica utilizada fue la recopilación documental para la obtención y recolección de los elementos que se van a valorar. Se consultaron fuentes de información documentales primarias y secundarias. Se propuso un método para obtener el valor económico básico anual de las publicaciones seriadas impresas que mide el monto económico desembolsado para adquirir la colección en la institución, así como un método de depreciación acelerada para obtener el valor depreciado anual que expresa el valor actual de la colección en el año que se escoja, ajustado por el factor de depreciación. La metodología propuesta en esta investigación debe ser capaz de estimar los valores actuales de los precios de las publicaciones seriadas.(AU)

A investigation of longitudinal prospective descriptive type was carried out with the objective to elaborate a methodological proposal to obtain the economic value of the collection of serial publications printed as fixed tangible asset of the National Cuban Medical Library, for the priority of these documents for the diffusion of the scientific knowledge. The procedure was based to obtain and to calculate the prices of the printed serial publications acquired in the institution. It stood out the importance of valuing the collections to face internal and external audits in the institution, to hire service of sure, to base programs or financing projects and for the decisions in the exchange and discard of the collections like a very institutional one tangible. The used technique was the documental summary for the obtaining and gathering of the elements that will value. Documental primary and secondary sources of information were consulted. It intended a method to obtain the basic annual economic value of the printed serial publications that measures the economic mount paid to acquire the collection in the institution, as well as a method of quick depreciation to obtain the depreciated annual value that expresses the current value of the collection in the year that is chosen, adjusted by the depreciation factor. The methodology proposed in this investigation should be able to estimate the current values of the prices of the serial publications.(AU)