When your institution is part of an open access (OA) agreement, what does that mean on a daily basis? What do OA librarians actually do with regards to an OA agreement? In this new blog series, we meet librarians and those in charge of implementing ϳԹ OA agreements from various research institutions. They share their experiences and offer insights into how OA agreements impact their work, the library, and the researchers they serve.
For the third blog in the series, we caught up with the Director of Technical Services and Assessment at the University of Miami Libraries, which is part of the ϳԹ NERL transformative agreement (TA) in the United States.
I live in Miami with my spouse, three kids, and our dog. I serve as the Director of Technical Services and Assessment at the University of Miami Libraries. I hold a master’s in information science and am a Microsoft Certified Data Analyst Associate.
My role as Director of Technical Services and Assessment involves providing guidance and strategic management to library staff responsible for acquiring, describing, and ensuring access to materials in different formats, languages, and disciplines. I supervise the acquisition, assessment, licensing, and management of electronic resources, cataloguing, metadata creation, and processing of all library materials.
Additionally, I am involved in negotiating new agreements that support sustainable scholarship principles, streamlining workflows, particularly relating to OA agreements, and ensuring access and discovery of both owned and leased content.
I enjoy working together with my Technical Services team and guiding them to achieve success.
“The decision to join this agreement was backed by data analysis on University of Miami publications and usage.”
Managing OA agreements is a task alongside other projects and responsibilities. Typically, I handle OA requests in a way similar to how I manage daily emails.
We also have a task force of about ten librarians that meets weekly to discuss current subscriptions and licensing agreements, explore trends and opportunities, and review our OA agreements and their performance.
We are now in the first year of the ϳԹ OA agreement, which has benefited our researchers by supporting their need to publish OA. The decision to join this agreement was backed by data analysis on University of Miami publications and usage.
I have several concrete suggestions. First establish strict and clear criteria for approving or denying OA publishing requests. Additionally, make sure you have access to systems that can verify the requester's affiliation with your institution. I think it is important to ensure that your team takes ownership of this new task, which involves reviewing, approving, and denying OA requests, similar to handling emails.
Lastly, closely track statistics and data, as they are essential for assessing if an OA agreement truly meets your institution's needs.
Stay tuned for the next blogs in the series, in which we’ll meet more OA librarians from different institutions, and find out about their work and responsibilities relating to an OA agreement.
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